A recent article in USA Today asks and then answers the question: What makes a place to work a great place to work? The answer to this question comes from aptly named institute, The Great Place to Work Institute.This institute has identified three crucial factors that make a workplace great: Firms that rank high on the consulting and research group’s lists of great employers have three traits in common, he says: employee trust in management, pride in the company and... Read more
A recent article in USA Today celebrates the 100-year birthday of Chevrolet. It contains a few surprises. For example, did you know that the first Chevy Suburban was sold in 1935? That makes Suburban the “longest-lived automotive nameplate in continual use.” What I found most ironic, however, was the list of Chevy’s biggest losers. According to USA Today’s auto team, there are three cars that constitute Chevrolet’s “terrible trio”: Vega, Chevette, and Citation. I never had the privilege of owning... Read more
Part 9 of series: What is a Church? When a Church is Not a Church, Part 4 In yesterday’s post, I explained that the earliest Christian usage of the word ekklesia, which is normally translated as “church” in English Bibles, referred to an actual gathering of believers in Jesus. The ekklesia in Thessalonica didn’t exist, therefore, unless the Thessalonian Christians were actually together. So, when Paul wrote a letter to this ekklesia, he didn’t mean “all the Christians in the... Read more
Part 8 of series: What is a Church? When a Church is Not a Church, Part 3 In my last two posts, I suggested that the Greek word ekklesia, which is usually translated as “church” in our English New Testaments, did not have the religious overtones we naturally hear when “church” is spoken. Because of this, I’ve even suggested that “church” is not the best translation for ekklesia. “Assembly,” it seems to me, is better, even though it doesn’t quite... Read more
Part 7 of series: What is a Church? When a Church is Not a Church, Part 2 In my last post, I argued something fairly commonplace: that the word “church,” understood theologically, does not refer to a building but to the congregation who uses it. This is not news, though it deserves to be repeated. Then, I argued something fairly unusual: that the English word “church” is a poor translation of the Greek word ekklesia, the word that is almost... Read more
Here’s an Experiment: Frame Your Day With God’s Love and Faithfulness Psalm 92:1-15 It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, Psalm 92:2 I wonder what would happen if you were to take Psalm 92:2 very literally. What difference might it make in your life if the first thing you did when you got up in the morning was to proclaim God’s unfailing love, and the last thing you did was to... Read more
The title grabbed my attention: “The Perverse Monstrosity of Our Beautiful Work.” So did author L.L. Barkat’s first sentence: “It was the suckiest letter I ever received.” Any article that combines perversity, monstrosity, beauty, and suckiness just has to be read. Barkat’s “suckiest letter” was in response to something she had written. Someone didn’t like her work, and told her in no uncertain terms. I’ve received a few letter’s like this over the years, not to mention several dozen blog... Read more
In the last couple of days, I watched more baseball than I have in a couple of years. In the end, it was not much fun for someone from Texas, though I’ve got to give tons of credit to the St. Louis Cardinals. They proved to have great fortitude in addition to great talent. But I have one gripe and one question. My gripe is this: spitting. Not only did I see more baseball in the last week than I... Read more
I am in the middle of reading a book that should be read by every church leader: pastor, elder, deacon, director, lay leader, etc. The book is You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman. In this book, Kinnaman explores in detail why Christians in their late teens and twenties are leaving church. Yet his is not one more “blame the church” book, of which there are already plenty. Kinnaman looks at broader cultural... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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A Presbyterian Church Makes the New York Times and There’s No Scandal!
I was surprised and pleased to see that a Presbyterian Church made it into the New York Times today. No, there is no scandal. Nothing about declining membership or divisive church politics. None of that. The headline I read in the morning was “Millenials in Church – Up Close.” The online edition is called “A Congregation in Skinny Jeans.” By either title, the article focuses on Resurrection Presbyterian Church in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. And, yes, apparently... Read more