The Five Hour Challenge: Turning Your Church Outwardly Focused
Here is my simple challenge: Commit at least five hours a week to evangelism and outwardly-focused ministries. Mark those five hours on your calendar like any other appointment. Make those five hours a priority. Do not come up with busyness and excuses that keep you from fulfilling your challenge.
This challenge should apply to all vocational ministers on staff. If you are full-time, commit five hours. If you are half-time, commit three hours (yeah, I rounded up).
4 Facts Every American Should Know About Third-Trimester Abortions
- Third-trimester abortions are already protected by federal law.
- State laws restricting third trimester abortions are unconstitutional under the precedent of Doe.
- The Democratic Party officially supports keeping third-trimester abortions legal.
- Overturning Roe and Doe won’t end all third-trimester abortions.
Say what? Newborn would be ‘resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired’
Now, I realize that this news is not — for many mainstream journalists — as big a threat to Western Civilization as a small flock of Catholic teens chanting school cheers in response to a barrage of nasty, homophobic and racist insults by grown-ups in a truly radical religious sect.
The fact is many a big church is filling up with people who, like the Millennials with golf, haven’t got – or won’t give – the six hours a week that is required for smaller, local churches to survive. Those smaller churches are the spiritual equivalent of a nine hole course in your average suburb.
Ethnicity Blights Democratization and Nation-Building in Africa
There is the false idealistic argument that with the establishment of liberal democracy in Africa, tribalism and ethnic difference would fade as people begin to identify themselves primarily with their country, as opposed to with their ethnic groups. However, mutual suspicions among the diverse ethnic nationalities within African countries and the lack of cross-cutting social relationships have not engendered liberal democratic ideals that would lead to nation-building.
The Christian Life Is More Like a Bus Ride Than a Motorcycle Ride
It’s hard to sing karaoke by yourself. If you like to travel by yourself, then nothing beats the freedom of a motorcycle. You can zip in and out of lanes, cut through the annoyance of construction traffic, go where you want, how you want, and as long as you want. But it’s hard to sing karaoke by yourself. Traveling by bus is slower. You have to wait for others to get on board. You can’t always have the seat you want. You can’t go as fast on the road. You can’t change lanes too well, pass others at will, have the final say on where to stop for food, and of course, someone always has to go to the bathroom. But the karaoke can be a blast!
In the past, however, it wasn’t this way. If you wanted to see a graveyard you wouldn’t go to a “memorial park” located somewhere away from daily living. Instead, you’d go to church. In the past, graveyards were created right around the church. It was a sobering reminder that what was talked about inside the church had a direct bearing on where you’d be someday outside the church. Cemeteries were holy ground.
How to Write a Shareable Sermon: 5 Tips to Greater Impact
- Make it Short
- What’s the Point?
- Tell a Story
- Use a Bible Passage
- Be Quotable
Once you’ve truly settled into the anesthetizing effects of boredom, you find yourself en route to discovery. With monotony, small differences begin to emerge, between those trees, those sweaters. This is why so many useful ideas occur in the shower, when you’re held captive to a mundane activity. You let your mind wander and follow it where it goes.
Of course, it’s not really the boredom itself that’s important; it’s what we do with it. When you reach your breaking point, boredom teaches you to respond constructively, to make something happen for yourself. But unless we are faced with a steady diet of stultifying boredom, we never learn how.
Recreations of Famous Paintings of Myths Using Only My Children’s Toys
Sarah Scullin is grateful to her son Isaac for his assistance on this project, for letting her borrow his toys, and for accepting that sometimes her job is weird.