THE CURRENT - Leading the Following Way
I am excited about a new book I have coming out this Fall (Abingdon Press). It is entitled The Teaming Church: Ministry in the Age of Collaboration. Here is a link to an excerpt from the book. Read more
I am excited about a new book I have coming out this Fall (Abingdon Press). It is entitled The Teaming Church: Ministry in the Age of Collaboration. Here is a link to an excerpt from the book. Read more
OK. Granted this is a departure from our usual topics here at The Current. But, I just had to tell you about this. My wife, Pam, and I found this little grilling chicken pan on sale at Target. It is called a “non-stick deluxe vertical chicken cooker”. You can get one online for about $18. Anyhow, it does just what it says. It allows you to cook a chicken vertically on your outdoor grill. It comes with a “cone” to... Read more
What was Jesus’ P.O.V.? And how did he view the places, people and things around him? If you could see the world now the way Jesus saw it then, just what would it look like, how would the people appear, and what would you look like? P.O.V. is a literary and theatrical term used to describe Point Of View. POV is simply the viewpoint, angle or spectrum through which someone observes settings, situations or people. In movies and television,... Read more
Scot McKnight recommends the volume by Hawthorne as the best work available on Jesus’ relationship to the Holy Spirit. This is an important subject for Pentecostals, and Evangelicals in general, to consider. Hawthorne makes an interesting, and highly significant, distinction between “faith in Jesus” and “the faith OF Jesus.” Consider this excerpt: (p. 35) “In thinking still more about the faith of Jesus as a mark of his humanness, there are also those difficult phrases – pistis lesou and pistis... Read more
Abraham is described in the Bible as “the friend of God” (James 2:23). This was perhaps the most intriguing title ever given to a created being. The 19th Century biblical biographer, Alexander Whyte, describes the significance of the term, in the language of his time: You may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no [substance] opens the heart but a true friend ‑‑ a... Read more
While many obsess over gun control laws, the more pressing question is what we can do to better “influence” the souls that may eventually use them. On Meet The Press (NBC, July 22, 2012), NY Times political and cultural commentator David Brooks was asked by host David Gregory if the Colorado shootings may cause “some kind of national moment” to occur. Brook’s response framed the issue clearly and poignantly. He said: (more…) Read more
MARRIAGE REDUCES POVERTY? A recent study by the Brookings Institute shows that for those who graduate from high school, who get a full-time job and wait until 21 before they get married and then have their first child, the probability of becoming poor is 2%. If those factors are absent, the probability of becoming poor is 76%! Read more
Read the story of Bobby Gruenewald, the founder of Youversion, and how this incredible Bible reading and study tool came into being. Read more
The newest issue of The Atlantic Monthly (July-Aug 2012) has an excerpt from a new book by Susan Caine called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking). Here’s what she says: “‘Hire good people and leave them alone.’ So declared William McKnight, who was 3M’s unassuming CEO during the 1930s and ’40s, and who encouraged employees to spend 15 percent of their time noodling on their own pet projects. (The policy survives to this day... Read more
John Piper (who is not a Pentecostal but a Reformed Noncessationist) says… “Now the positive thing I want to say about the moderate Pentecostal teaching (represented by the Bennets, i.e., Dennis & Rita) is that it is right to stress the experiential reality of receiving the Spirit. When you read the New Testament honestly, you can’t help but get the impression of a big difference from a lot of contemporary Christian experience. For them the Holy Spirit was a fact... Read more
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