What does your community think about the church where you attend? What are we known for? What do others think of us? The answer too often is that the world is hardly aware of our presence, at least with reference to specific congregations. They drive by our buildings daily and see our limited advertising and …
Category Archives: Church
An Outsider’s Perspective: Why the Churches of Christ Were Right After All
One of my former students at Ohio Valley University, Mark Tonkery, sent me the link below. The article deserves wider circulation–I hope you enjoy it and profit from it. Let us see ourselves more clearly–warts and all! (Read the comments too!) The article was written by Ted Campbell, Associate Professor Church History, Perkins School of …
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A Special Day–311
The 50th Anniversary Celebration last weekend put a fitting climax on six months of exciting interim ministry with the Holmes Road church in Lansing. Although the new minister has been in place for over a month, the anniversary was a significant part of the ministry renewal plan we initiated late last summer. The Sunday morning …
It’s Sunday Again: Celebrating the Church
The song says “Celebrate Christ”. Because Christ values the church as his body, because he died for the church, because he claims the church and it wears his name, we can also “celebrate church.” The church for which Christ died is described in Acts 2 where we read of its beginning as the first to …
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My “Home” Congregation
When I turned the daily inspiration calendar on the shelf, this thought jumped out at me: “No one gives you a home, you make a home.” The editor of the calendar probably intended to encourage us to strengthen our families. As is often the case, the saying caused me to think….Don’t parents give or provide …
It’s a New World
I have been reviewing my blogs for 2010–close to 150 in almost 300 days. Along the way, I have done some recategorizing to make searches easier and more consistent. My conclusion after rereading this year’s writings is that we live in a new world! The church faces challenges the magnitude of which it has never …
Crystal Cathedral Bankruptcy: Will anyone learn anything?
The news earlier this week that the Crystal Cathedral has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy again raises the question about what it means to be a church, and how churches ought to live out their ministries. The Crystal Cathedral, established over 50 years ago by Robert Schuller, is $43 million dollars in debt with over …
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Identity Crisis
We do not know who we are. We are an admixture of views on almost every subject. We are characterized by tremendous disagreement. Informal polls show that we are almost evenly split on almost any topic that may come up. The ambiguity of the above paragraph is intentional. I could be writing about our nation, …
We are family; we can get over it!
I had never heard the phrase applied to the church, but I immediately liked it! Opting out of a family is not an option. I did not choose my family, but I am in it for the long haul. I cannot get out of it. My family is imperfect. We have our warts; we have …
Being “Family”
At the risk of “unleashing” rejoinders about assembly guidelines such as those in 1 Corinthians 14 (decently and in order), I observe that last Sunday evening’s gathering was for me refreshing. Here is some of what I saw. I saw the little dog on the front row. Explanation given by our sister in Christ: I …