Tag Archives: Church

AI & Pastoral Education?

I ran across this piece at Mere Orthodoxy today. As far as “AI Coming” for transmission of information, I’m sure he’s right. He’s also right that there needs to be more to pastoral education than transmission of information. But our … Continue reading

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Christianity, Discipleship, Education, Global Methodist Church, Preaching | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

1700th Anniversary of Nicaea

Though I’d attended my grandparents’ 50th anniversary party as a child, I was too young to be aware of what was happening. The first big anniversary I remember celebrating was the US Bicentennial in 1976. I remember celebrating the 200th … Continue reading

Posted in Bible, Church History, Current events, Jesus, Theology | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Warm Heart?

What does it mean to have a “warm heart?

Posted in Gospel, Jesus, John Wesley, Love | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Gospel of John – Chapter 2

We continue our work in the Gospel of John. Here are links for our discussions in chapter 2: April 6 April 13 April 27

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Jesus | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Trend toward Finding Christianity “Useful”

As a preacher, I’m often encouraged to preach “relevant” messages. When I look at those who subscribe to the ethos of “relevance” I see messages based on wisdom. Surely people do need wisdom: wisdom on how to have a marriage, … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Culture | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Don’t Avoid Prayer

Tyler Staton in Pray Like Monks, Live Like Fools: To pray is to risk being naive, to risk believing, to risk playing the fool. To pray is to risk trusting someone who might let you down. To pray is to … Continue reading

Posted in Discipleship, Discipline, Prayer | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Engagement vs. Attraction as Cause of Church Growth

If “church growth” means that a church is seeing people (a) come to faith in Christ and (b) grow in faithfulness to Christ, then “church growth” is a good thing. Notice that church growth defined in these terms is not … Continue reading

Posted in church growth, Discipleship | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

This Little Babe

When I was in college we had a large chapel choir. It was large enough, in fact, that I could be a member without noticeably impairing the sound quality. I gained much of my appreciation of historical Christian music from … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Christmas, Jesus | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How God Became King

We’ve been doing a study of NT Wright’s book, How God Became King. It’s been a very slow study, sometimes make less than a page of progress in our hour of discussion. There’s been lots of repetition. I’ve spent time … Continue reading

Posted in Bible, Books, N.T. Wright, Theology | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Conformed to the World?

This meme has been circulating on social media lately: The truth to this requires nuance. There is almost always more than one way to “become like the world.” The world tends to give us at least two options. It doesn’t … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, Discipleship | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment