Blood Trumps Everything: Why the Church Needs Her Martyrs
In short, if blood is the most sacred thing we know the church needs to have some blood in the game if she is to stand as a counter-cultural witness to the blood-soaked flag of a nation.
Social Justice and the Gospel: What is the Core Mission of the Church?
In summary, we should be clear that both gospel proclamation and deeds of mercy should be part of the life of the church. We are not forced to choose. But we must also be careful to distinguish between them. Deeds of mercy are not the gospel. They are the fruit of the gospel.
4 Ways Millennials Are Embracing Traditional Faith
There is no question that Millennials are different in articulating their faith experience than previous generations, but I believe what is fundamentally different has less to do with whether or not we care about faith, but what about faith we care about. What has changed is not our concern over questions of orthodoxy, but the kinds of questions of orthodoxy we ask.
Houston, We Have a Constitution
A government has no business using subpoena power to intimidate or bully the preaching and instruction of any church, any synagogue, any mosque, or any other place of worship. The pastors of Houston should tell the government that they will not trample over consciences, over the First Amendment and over God-given natural rights.
Why do I share this? To beg you to pray for us. Because when I held the bloody hand of that HIV+ patient, I was praying within my heart for protection. And after I settled her down, I did the scrub down and examined my hands for wounds and prayed again. We aren’t rogue caregivers or careless and we don’t have a death wish. What we have is some something, buried deep in our DNA that requires us to give ourselves to God in the service of those in need and to believe that even when the man-made precautions that should protect us fail (even when it’s because we didn’t use them,) He will honor our attempts to give care and compassion.
First, we can preach the biblical texts on honoring parents and include the elderly in our preaching on the sanctity of human life. Second, we should be more intentional about fostering intergenerational relationships so the younger see the value of engagement with senior saints. Third, we need to be more intentional about challenging those tempted to abdicate their responsibility to their parents and affirm those who willingly take up the task. Lastly, the church can connect our people to helpful resources in the community that offer help and wise counsel.
What do Americans pray for? Themselves. And maybe a sports team
Some of LifeWay’s new survey’s main findings include:
- 48 percent of Americans pray every day
- 82 percent who pray typically pray about family or friends
- 20 percent pray for people of other faiths or no faith
- Equal numbers of Americans (7 percent) pray behind the wheel, either for a good parking space or not to get a speeding ticket
- Smaller numbers of people, around 5 percent, pray for someone’s relationship to end, someone to get fired or for someone else to fail.
A Priest With a Death Sentence: Looking Closer at Calvary
I love that. “I don’t think it will be winning any awards from the Christian world. … It takes place in a universe very like ours.”
Then I saw it and enjoyed most of it very much, until…
…the end, when admiration grew into deep gratitude. The more I reflect on it, the more I’m certain that this will remain one of my favorite films of 2014.
Why We’re All Beta Testers Now
Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about traditional programs any differently. Maybe we should get rid of frozen, numbered editions, much as Adobe has done.
That wouldn’t eliminate the frustration of bugginess, but at least we would comprehend software’s true nature: a product that is never finished.
Spelling error identified on new Ernie Pyle sculpture
The word “correspondent,” as seen on a patch on the left shoulder of the bronze sculpture, is incorrectly spelled. It currently reads “U.S. War Corespondent.”