This is a wonderful video that a friend sent to me recently after I preached a sermon on shame, that I thought was incredible. It’s from a lost interview with Bono of U2, soon after his father died after his bout with cancer. The most powerful part of this interview to me comes when Bono talks about watching his father lose his dignity, and what that taught him. In light of the honor/shame culture we live in today, I think Bono is... Read more
Jesus died naked. Despite what the religious paintings and icons tell you, I think it’s important to remember that the Son of God left the world the way He entered it. Naked and exposed, hanging at eye level on a hill with a lot of foot traffic. The Romans did crucifixions like this on purpose. Because the point of the crucifixion wasn’t just about violence, it was about shame. I wrote last week, that too often, Christians today are fooled into... Read more
As a millennial African American leader, the past couple of months I have been fortunate to share meals with friends and associates who are white church leaders, missiologists, or ordinary good people. The conversations for most of these engagements were centered on the racial tensions that are evident throughout America. Most of my white friends and associates were thoughtful enough to ask me to help them understand the black experience and how they can help. Therefore, I am writing this... Read more
This is another post in a Friday blog series for people who serve/volunteer/work in any kind of ministry setting. It’s a series about the practical things we face in ministry, as well as why doing these things matter. The following is a guest blog by Eddie Sharp on how he goes about writing a funeral and caring for a family in the middle of grieving. For those of you who are not familiar with Eddie, he is a legend in West Texas. He is... Read more
There may or may not be a God. I’m saying this up front, because after a title like “Proving God” it’s important not to bury the lede. Worked into being a person of faith is an awareness that we could be wrong about something which we are staking much on. That’s why we use the word Faith…it’s a loaded synonym for other words like risk or chance. Because what if there isn’t a God? What if it is all just one big... Read more
One of my favorite new podcast listens is a great show done by my friends Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile called “The Road Back to You” It’s a podcast based on the Enneagram, a hard-to-describe tool that I’ve found tremendously helpful for understanding myself and others. The Enneagram is more than a personality assessment or spiritual gifts test, but it does overlap with some of that. But it’s different in that it’s not so much about what you do, as it is about why... Read more
Justine Sacco chuckles to herself as she fires off what she considers a silly tweet to her 170 Twitter followers while boards the plane in Heathrow on the final leg of her trip to South Africa. “Headed to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just Kidding. I’m white!” When she landed, she learned that she had become an international news sensation…and not in a good way. Her ill-advised tweet had been retweeted thousands of times, making her the #1 trending topic on Twitter. CNN was... Read more
In a letter from the 2nd century, Mathetes (Greek for disciple) wrote the earliest know apologetic letter describing the Christian faith to an outsider. For more on this letter’s context go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_Diognetus But for today, I just wanted you to share what I consider the highlight of the letter as an example of how the early church thought of itself in a political climate much more hostile toward them and anxiety provoking than today’s: Christians are not distinguished from the rest... Read more
This is another post in a Friday blog series for people who serve/volunteer/work in any kind of ministry setting. It’s a series about the practical things we face in ministry, as well as why doing these things matter. The following is a guest post by Dan Bouchelle, Dan has served as a minister for over two decades, most recently at the Central Church of Christ in Amarillo, Texas. Today Dan serves churches through the world and the missionaries they support through Missions Resource Network. Here’s... Read more
I love my church. I just want to say how proud I am that I belong to the Highland Church of Christ and the stuff God is doing in us and through us right now. This past Sunday we played this video that has been about 3 years in the making. We announced that in our vision to end systematic homelessness in Abilene, we bought the old St. Ann’s hospital to turn it into a housing first complex for our... Read more
Jonathan Storment
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