The first time I ever evacuated from a war-zone I left behind a huge block of beautiful cheddar cheese in the fridge. As tanks rolled through town and war planes were minutes from bombing the airstrip we were about to fly off of, I boarded our Cessna Caravan lugging our single suitcase and five-month old daughter literally thinking mournfully, “But the cheese!” Because in that part of the world, cheese was completely unavailable, and weeks earlier I had carried that... Read more
If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you’ve heard me talk about growing up in a little 10 person church. I talk about it so often because it is the filter that I view the majority of my life through. A down-syndrome boy who led worship, a mentally unstable preacher, senior saints and racial diversity, communion served by ex-convincts, we had it all. But one of the more formative parts of our church, is something I’ve never really talked about... Read more
“In those days, the Word of the LORD was rare, there were not many visions.” -1st Samuel 3:1 It would be nice if people saw that the world cannot be disenchanted, and that the choice before us is really a choice of enchantments. -Francis Spufford “I don’t believe in God. I believe in Science.” -Nacho Libre After the 2011 Tsunami hit Japan, the London Review of Books reviewed an essay on the recurring problem that people in the coastal regions of Japan called “Hungry... Read more
Until recently, one of the litmus tests for whether someone was to be considered sane or not was the question, “Do you hear from God?” Read more
What if our hectic lives aren’t because of a lack of time but because of a lack of wisdom? Read more
Som Sabadell from Onidea on Vimeo. I’ll get back to this video in a second. I go to church with a guy named Richard Beck, popular blogger, author and one of my best friends in Abilene. Richard is also one of the most intelligent people I know, and according to him, years before we met, he was just barely hanging on to his faith. He’s extremely educated, and had become cynical and disenchanted with the Christian faith. But then Richard started doing something... Read more
This week’s post is by my friend Sean Palmer. Sean is the new Teaching Pastor at Ecclesia in Houston, He’s a member of Missio Alliance and writes regularly at his own site as well. Sean also co-hosts an excellent podcast “Not so Black and White” Meet Sean: A Rabbi sat down with his disciples and asked, “How can you tell when night has ended and the day has begun?” The first student replied, “It is when, at a distance, you can tell a... Read more
Tony Steward hasn’t been to church in over a year. At least that was what he said back when his website was still up in 2013. After working as a pastor at two different mega-churches for over ten years, Steward walked away from it all and didn’t look back. Well…almost. He wrote a blog talking about how after seeing how “the sausage was made” at church, he wanted nothing more to do with it. The truly haunting thing about his post was... Read more
The truth is we need Institutions, and we have a far too limited view of what they are…and how they work. Read more
The reason I appreciate Nietzsche’s work so much is because he at least hated Christianity for the thing it actually was. Read more
Jonathan Storment
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