Please. Read this. I wish someone could have explained this phenomenon to me three decades ago as lucidly as Naked Pastor put it in his post.   I’ve been fooled again by relationships I thought were friendships, but those relationships withered (and in a couple of painful cases, incinerated) when one or the other of us left the congregation that first brought us together. I’m amazed that the kind of intimacy that grows when you’re in the trenches of one... Read more

Most of us know a few bits about horse-and-buggy driving, technology-shunning Amish and conservative Mennonites. But unless we’ve grown up in the Dakotas or on the Canadian prairie, it is unlikely that we know much about their Anabaptist cousins, the Hutterites. The Hutterites share a common spiritual heritage, but are distinguished by their distinctive communal lifestyle. Canadian author Mary-Ann Kirkby’s memoir of her experience growing up Hutterite – and then leaving the community at age ten in order to join... Read more

To read part one of this sorta series on corporate worship, click here. To read part two, click here. What do these two anecdotes have in common? Alice (not her real name) is a cast-iron, old-school prayer warrior. She knows the prayer needs of those in her church by heart, and works though the list as she drives around town running errands. She starts her engine, clears her th roat and begins singing her intercession to God, usually to the... Read more

Click here to read part one of this series.  The church was a massive cathedral, constructed on a prime plat of rich farmland over 100 years ago in order to provide a house of worship for the German farmers who’d settled the area. Suburbia tried to swallow it whole, but didn’t seem to be able to digest the massive steeple, European stained glass windows and beams hewn from ancient trees that once clustered near the town’s cold, still lake. Up... Read more

It’s a perfect summer afternoon. You’ve settled into your box seat, twenty-two rows behind the visiting baseball team’s dugout. You flag down the hot dog guy and fork over your four bucks. He slaps a steaming red hot into a soft bun in a single motion, passing it to you as the ballpark announcer finishes introducing your home team. You open your mouth to take a bite. At that moment, the ballpark announcer pauses dramatically and then asks everyone to... Read more

“Why isn’t this church like that conference?” A friend recently reported that her teen daughter asked her this question after attending a teaching and worship event that drew thousands of people from across the U.S.  The young woman had experienced the sweet intensity that occurs when a large group of people is gathered for a single, focused purpose. She came home ready to change the world, and sat through a typical church service or two before she realized that though... Read more

A Saturday afternoon grab bag: If you like books and book reviews, you’ll want to bookmark the Englewood Review of Books website. Every Tuesday and Friday, a thoughtful variety of book reviews are posted, along with an occasional poem or music review. Browse the site to give yourself a sense of the breadth of the sorts of books covered there. Both Bill and I began reviewing for the site earlier this year. (You can search for our reviews by typing... Read more

“When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him.” – Ps. 116:15 MSG  I remember where I was* in 1982 when I heard the news that Keith Green died. Though I’d never met him in person, his life message of radical discipleship shaped me more than the sermons I sat through in church most Sundays. He was the real deal. I remember the “oh no…” roller-coaster drop I got in my gut in 1997 when... Read more

There has been a (welcome) shift in many corners of Evangelicalism in recent years toward story-shaped preaching and teaching. Many pastors and writers have discovered that three alliterative points have more to do with activating short-term memory than engaging spiritual imagination and motivating long-term growth. Dr. Larry Crabb understands this shift. His rich teaching and counseling ministry have been all about helping people connect deeply with The Story, one that’s bigger than any single individual. To that end, he walked... Read more

Our youngest son Jacob, 23, regularly surprises us as he’ll offhandedly recount a little snippet of a childhood memory. He remembers the shape of trees, the location of a neighborhood kid war, the texture of food on a plate. I’ve long since forgotten the details that are vivid brushstrokes inside of him. He’s an artist now (illustration major at Northern Illinois University), and this deep gift of perception spills onto his canvases and sketch pads. Perception for him is more... Read more