So every month, my preacher buddy Luke Norsworthy and I sit down and talk about all things ministry/church/preaching and all the great podcast interviews that he did over the past month. Luke’s got a consistently good podcast with fascinating guests, and I highly recommend subscribing to it. This month we talked about Shawna Niequest’s new book Present Over Perfect, We discussed the theological showdown that happened with Chris Green and Pete Enns, and how out of his depth Luke was in that whole conversation,... Read more

I used to care a lot about being relevant. Not a day went by that I didn’t step on my soap-box and preach about how the church has got to learn to be in step with the times. I still care about that. But I’ve started to believe that often behind our language of relevance is more of an idea of competition. Last week, I talked about the Morality of the choices we all face, and how American consumerism has shaped us... Read more

So there is this one time in the book of Acts, where Paul is in the middle of this kind of sham trial. He’s in front of the Sanhedrein, the Jewish religious leaders of his day, and he’s facing the death penalty. It’s got to be a stressful situation to say the least. And to make the situation even worst, at one point, Paul gets unfairly slapped in the face. Now Paul, like most of us, doesn’t like that. Now... Read more

So this a series for people who serve/volunteer/work in any kind of ministry setting. It’s about the practical things we face in ministry, as well as why doing these things matter. Today’s blog is a guest post from Jordan Hubbard. Jordan serves as Senior Minister at the Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, TX., he spent over a decade in student ministry before stepping into preaching ministry. Here’s Jordan: “OK. That’s it. He’s gone. Time of death is 8:20.” The hospice nurse said... Read more

Once upon a time, a man loved a woman. He was smitten with her beauty and pursued her with a ravenous desire. He wrote her poetry and sang her music, dripping with promises of fidelity and everlasting love. Yet, once his love had captured her heart, this man slowly began to lose the ability to see her beauty. And this man slowly stopped being able to see what was right in front of him. The Orthodox rabbi and counselor Shmuley... Read more

Today in my column on Scot McKnight’s blog, I’m starting a fairly lengthy book review of Richard Beck’s new book “Reviving Old Scratch: Spiritual Warfare for the Doubters and Disenchanted” But this is more than just a simple book review for me, I go to church with the Beck’s and have witnessed up close how these ideas have changed their lives, and how they can change yours. There’s a good chance that if you are reading this blog, you have... Read more

I don’t know if you’ve heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s new podcast “Revisionist History” but if not I highly recommend it. As a long time fan of Gladwell’s work, I’m always fascinated by his insights and social commentary and this new podcast is filled with them. For example, last month Revisionist History started off by interviewing college students at Bowdoin College about the selection of foods in the cafeteria. The students were gushing about the variety and selection of every day’s menu. The fresh... Read more

By the time Justine Sacco’s plane landed in South Africa, she was the #1 trending topic on Twitter, and the most hated person in the world. Just before the American took off on vacation to visit her friends and family is South Africa, she fired off an ill-advised tweet that said “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white.” Midway through her flight, unbeknownst to her, the hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet was taking off, with the internet using it’s... Read more

This is another post in a Friday series about both the nuts and bolts of practical ministry and how it relates to the reason we got into ministry in the first place. For the past couple of weeks Randy Piersall has been giving advice on best practices he’s seen with ministers doing funerals. In case you missed it, Randy is a local funeral home directorand one of the best people that I’ve seen at entering into people’s grief and standing with them. He’s shared tips... Read more