“I pastored a Southern Baptist church in southern Missouri, and there some people in that church whose whole identity, I think, was tied to a self-righteous image. I discovered quickly I couldn’t change things when folks were determined not to change. In time, though, I realized that all around the church was a sea of dying people. I made friends outside the church and found plenty of people who were receptive to me.” — Dallas Willard in Becoming Dallas Willard by Gary Moon
The past few weeks have been heavy news for the Church. For evangelicals… it’s been Willow Creek and the leadership failure of that megachurch. (Then there are those trying to cling to evangelical as “tribe” but the politics of it right now are a bad mess.)
For the Catholics, it was the grand jury findings in Pennsylvania, then another bombshell this week when Pope Francis himself was accused of hiding information on a pedophile within the Vatican. Continue reading “Is it time to quit the Church?”
Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep
and say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’” (Joel 2:17, ESV) Continue reading “Dealing with the sin of church leadership”
I am tired. Weary. The news… social media… all around I am confronted with how we are behaving as Americans… as Christians…
I am tired. Weary. Continue reading “The refreshing presence of Jesus in the Word”
“…the interior life of the Church is then one of selfless love so fully exercised that, within its communion, the structure of its ministries coincides exactly with that of interpersonal relationships and the whole is the visible manifestation of a community that so gives itself unselfishly in love and service that it cannot fail to touch the world outside, both as a community as through its individual members who perhaps spend their lives principally among non-Christians as ‘children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world’ (Phil. 2:15).” — Hans Urs von Balthasar, Engagement with God Continue reading “The power of the Church in this world”
Further thoughts on churches we’ve visited since the first of the year…
Through the first four months of this year, we’ve visited all kinds of churches. We have come away with a deeper appreciation and love for the Body of Christ and how it is expressed in so many ways. Continue reading “Oh, the places we’ve been, Pt. 2”
Kenneth Bailey in his book, The Good Shepherd, walks through several major “shepherd” passages of Scripture. He makes the case for seeing the Father and the Son as shepherds rather than vengeful judges. Continue reading “The failure of the shepherds”
