Apprentice 2 Jesus

Church Life

  • The end is near! Or… A revival is coming!

    Two very different takes on just how Christianity is “doing” in different parts of the world show our tendency toward tribalism. In the Middle East there are dire warnings of Christianity becoming extinct in the Middle East.  Meanwhile, Manhattan seems to be on the verge of a new revival! So, which is it? As Anthony Bradley points… Read more

  • The Church That Ate Its Own

    We really like this stuff. (I was so tempted to say, “We really eat this up.“) Tales from the crypt about horrible church experiences. Bad church. BAD CHURCH! And we shake our all too righteous fingers at it like it’s a dog that just wet the carpet. But… it makes headlines… and we eat it up. (Sorry. The… Read more

  • When the saints come marching in

    I grew up in a very fundamental Assemblies of God church. I have no bitter stories to tell. I have no scarred past… tattoos… rebellious drug-induced stories… I have good memories. For all the good, the bad, and the ugly, I have fond memories. What I remember most fondly is great preaching and the old… Read more

  • All Saints Day

    They’re not all Catholic, or Orthodox, in the traditional sense, but I remember these saints in my life: Anthony, desert monk. He teaches me to pray and persevere and take on the enemy with tenacity. Francis of Assisi. He teaches me to keep radically depending on God. Theresa of Avila. She teaches me the immense… Read more

  • This is what we do

    The power of the Kingdom of God can have an impact in so many ways. The kingdom is seen in a store line. Last night at Target as we were checking out, a man in the express lane was buying milk. Something with his transaction didn’t work. A young couple behind him noticed he couldn’t… Read more

  • Protestant Saints

    Andy Crouch has a piece in the Wall Street Journal on saints, and they’re not just for Catholics anymore. We all have our favorites. We just don’t call them saints. My patron saint will be Dallas Willard. Read more

  • We will, quite simply, change your mind

    It thought of that line in relation to how I want us to live as believers. It is too easy to get caught up in the blogosphere, the media, entertainment, etc., and form our opinions. There are some incredibly strong opinions about the church, and those with any measure of angst blog about it. The… Read more

  • We get torn apart by our terminology

    Richard Stearns, head of World Vision, wrote a response on a perceived attack on the term “radical Christians.” This was in response to a Christianity Today piece on the “new radicals.” Stearns’s response is basic: “Yep, we’re radical, and we’re not radical enough!” It’s gone back and forth in a way that reminds me of the days… Read more

  • Race and Fear

    I’ve written very little on the matter of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman because it’s far too complex to button hole either person into the extremes I read about every day online. But this article had some thoughts I resonated with. This thought in particular: Fear is not a complex human emotion—it’s a primal one.… Read more

  • So, Pastor, what good are you?

    Some of my favorite cartoons for church have a line that goes something like this: A parishoner sees the pastor’s wife in a grocery store and asks the wife, “So, does your husband work, or he is still pastoring?” Those always give me a smile. But the perception is more reality than we, as pastors,… Read more