Culture Creep: How an ‘orientation’ is born

“Some academics do not dispute the view of Tom O’Carroll, a former chairman of PIE [Paedophile Information Exchange] … that society’s outrage at paedophilic relationships is essentially emotional, irrational, and not justified by science. ‘It is the quality of the relationship that matters,’ O’Carroll insists.”

The thing to notice here is that while you weren’t looking the word “relationships” snuck in without debate. Another place gained. The language of alternative lifestyle slowly replaces today’s more common terminology of “abuse” and “victim.”

Never Start a Ministry Without a Minister

Most small churches get in a hurry and try to do too much. Pray and wait for God to bring you the person best shaped to lead it, then let them start the ministry. If there’s no interest in a particular ministry, don’t worry about it. It is so important for church leaders to have a long-term perspective concerning their church’s development. Solid growth takes time.

TOMS Shoes Are Bad, Fair Trade Isn’t Enough, & Shane Claiborne Cut His Hair & Now I Don’t Know What to Believe/Consume

My fear is that some will give in to the criticism, become overwhelmed by the complications in discovering what it means to live justly. I fear that some will give up and sink into apathy and instead of using energy and resources to serve God and others, they will squander.
I believe regardless of one’s ideology, our humanity is wired to care for others. I further believe the Christian faith offers the best narrative of how to live honoring God and others. For faithful disciples of Jesus, social justice is part of the gospel. My hope is that we continue to mature in this conversation.

Six Types of Selfishness

As I thought about this, six types of selfishness in my own life came to the surface, which, if I wasn’t confident that Christ died to kill them, might leave me in despair. But since I know that Jesus, because of his great love for me, died so that I would no longer be shackled to my little life, I am free to admit my selfishness to him (and to you).

Guns in Church

Let us remember further that when the church was persecuted and when Christians were martyred, the church grew. Our congregations are shrinking, and many are closing, all while we allow the people in the pews to carry guns. Do I want our members slaughtered in their seats? Of course not. Am I advocating a return to martyrdom? No. What I am suggesting, though, is that our churches have become so accommodated to culture that we are no longer relevant. We are no longer any different from the world. We have lost our saltiness, and might as well be thrown out onto the ground to be trampled.

Why Not Start Today?

We later visited in a nearby room. During the conversation, I expressed to my friend my uncertainty regarding my future plans. I said, “I really wonder what I will be doing someday.”
My friend very wisely said, “Someday is here.”
Think about that one.
Someday is here.
What have you put off? Have you repeatedly said, “I’ll do this tomorrow.”
Maybe today, you just need to begin.

Sins of the Spirit

Sins of the spirit are the attitudes and dispositions that lie beneath our behavior, but are what give them life and expression. Sins of the spirit are judgmental thoughts, a superior attitude, impatient words, bitter resentments, difficulty in being able to forgive, and have little room to love those we think are beneath us.

Why Young Churches Want Old Buildings

“Because that’s the thing about a building, or work of art, or even a sunset in the mountain,” Bean said. “You can engage beautiful objects or spaces, but they don’t ultimately satisfy your longing to encounter beauty. Beauty is designed to point to something beyond itself, and in that sense our passion for space is born out of a desire to have every aspect of someone’s experience with Redeemer point them to Jesus, as the one who is sufficiently and ultimately beautiful.”

List of Richest Pastors in Brazil Prompts White House Petition

According to Forbes, “prosperity theology” has allowed some pastors to hit the financial jackpot. Forbes reports that Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), is worth nearly $1 billion. Last Saturday, his autobiography made its American debut.

I Was A Stranger

Confessions of an “Undocumented Immigrant”

My takeaway from that Bible study topic was that we Christians are immigrants in this world. Unfortunately, some of us will be mistreated and picked on for being different (Romans 12:2). It is encouraging to see Christian organizations like Bibles, Badges & Businesses, G92, the Evangelical Immigration Table, among others, calling for comprehensive immigration reform because they have realized that some immigration laws are draconian and unjust. These Christians are willing to forgive and bestow grace upon us law-breakers, just like Christ forgave them and bestowed grace upon them when he washed their sins away.

Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?

There are many ways to debate immigration, but when it comes to economics, there isn’t much of a debate at all. Nearly all economists, of all political persuasions, agree that immigrants — those here legally or not — benefit the overall economy. “That is not controversial,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Shierholz also said that “there is a consensus that, on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration.”

Will Evangelicalism Last?

For one thing “Truth” is not rational abstraction — a concept, doctrine, or idea you can write down — especially not one which you conveniently have right and everyone else conveniently has wrong. Truth-as-a-rational-abstraction constitutes a denial of the incarnation (and big chunks of the New Testament). Doctrines and theologies can point to the truth but they are not themselves the Truth. The Truth has been revealed to us in and through Jesus Christ. Truth is a person. Jesus is the Truth.

An Open Letter to the Church: How to Love the Cynics

We are tired and we are cold, and we are looking for a reason to come.
Be the reason.
Light a candle. Take our hand, and walk with us.
Remind us what Jesus looks like: arms open, eyes full of love. Help us see him there, sitting with us in the anger, waiting.
Help us. Love us. Join us. And, maybe, we’ll find our way home.

Stepping Up to Bat on Your Home Field

I’ve learned that many missionaries carry a high level of guilt and pain. There is lingering pain over the losses that came with their service and the events they missed back home. There were the funerals and weddings missed, children born and graduated, life-marking events they can’t ever get back. There is also the unresolved pain over the neglect and mistrust of the overseeing churches who ignored them for years and then questioned their integrity and work ethic. Then there is the guilt over what serving cross-culturally did to their family. So often, the harm done to their children doesn’t come out for ten, twenty, or thirty years. By the time they learn about it, there is little that can be done. There are too many stories of the abuse of children by domestic servants or school officials. Add to this the guilt over what they didn’t know in time and the people they might have reached if they had known better sooner. It is haunting at times.

How a Family of Four Manages to Live Well on Just $14,000 Per Year

Wagasky, 28, lives with her her husband, Jason, 31, and their two young children in a three-bedroom family home in Las Vegas, Nevada. While Jason, a member of the U.S. Army, completes his undergraduate studies, the family’s only source of income is the $14,000 annual cost of living allowance he receives under the G.I. Bill. Despite all odds, the family has barely any credit card debt, no car payment, and no mortgage to speak of.

Conservative evangelical Christians sign on for immigration overhaul pitch

The goal is a system that’s both fair to immigrants who are here legally and compassionate to those who are not that provides eventual “earned” citizenship and border security.
“Dedicated Christians may disagree on what the solution is, but everybody acknowledges there must be a solution,” said the Rev. Rick Scarborough, an East Texas evangelist and head of the politically conservative Vision America.

Why Pastors Should Read Over Their Heads

What does this mean for you as a pastor? I can’t say for sure. But consider subscribing to a good journal like JETS or WTJ. Don’t dismiss every book that costs more than you think it’s worth. Plow through a book on your shelf that only makes sense half of the time. Find an area or a person you are really interested in and take a few months to read as much as you can. Try to peruse at least one scholarly monograph each year. And best of all, don’t be afraid to read the old, big books that these men and women are writing about.

Top 10 Things Preachers Love About Preaching

What do preachers really love about preaching? What aspects do they enjoy the most?
Some preachers may really enjoy and be fulfilled by counseling while another dreads even the thought of it. So I did a little informal and very unscientific survey of a rather large number of preachers. We contacted a wide range of preachers (ages, length of time preaching, many different regions).

Hearing God through Scripture – Lectio Divina

The main thrust behind Lectio Divina is to allow God to speak and guide us during the reading. That is why I use it: it is very much aligned to the concept of Whole Life Worship, especially to how I view Personal Worship time. Lectio Divina keeps the discipline of Scripture reading focused on the relational aspect of Personal Worship.

3 Things Your Parents Never Taught You About Adulthood

1. You live in a different culture than they do.
2. You learned more by what they did than by what they said.
3. Your parents never told you that you’d pick up some bad habits from them.

The wonderful reality of our adulthood is that we are always growing. Our parents influence us, but they don’t “make” us into the adults we are. The child you were is not the adult you have to be. The transition from child to adult is a transition of responsibility. Regardless of how healthy or how sick our family environment was growing up, our lives are now our own responsibility. We get to choose whose authority we answer to. Will it be the voices from your past or the voice of truth? And it is the great hope of our faith that not one of us is defined by our circumstances or our upbringing but by the transformative power of Christ in us.

What we remember from PowerPoint presentations, Part 2

The purpose of this week’s article is to show you how we can influence what people remember. Use these characteristics next time you create a PowerPoint presentation.

English requirement in immigration reform will test underfunded ESL system

There’s one issue, however, both sides agree on: The nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants will need to know English before they can earn permanent legal status, commonly referred to as a green card. And therein lies a barely discussed problem with the potential to overwhelm states and put up a barrier to immigrants who want to legalize: The nation’s English as a Second Language system may not be up to the task.

How Dutch legalizing of prostitution, drugs, & euthanasia is working out

The Netherlands, that once-Calvinist land, has gone farther than just about any other country in legalizing “victimless crimes,” such as prostitution, drug use, and euthanasia. Now that country is facing the unintended consequences, including an upsurge in organized crime, social squalor, and a deluge of sex tourists, drug tourists, and death tourists (who only buy a one-way ticket).

A Sacred Calling

The biblical understanding was never that a person would work until he or she reached the point of retirement, and then that person would be able to finally begin doing what he enjoyed. Instead, the biblical ideal was to work until death. The good life was to find work in something about which one was passionate. That person would work six days, and rest one. Both acts were offerings to God.

A Social Media Heart Check

Would you be comfortable having your husband or wife sitting beside you and seeing this activity log? How about your pastor or a good friend?

Controlling Other People: This is a Heart Issue

Put this on YOUR fridge and read it every day. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” To follow God’s guidelines in such texts, God will change the world from the inside out.

Thumbs Up? Thumbs Down?

Yet Jesus didn’t construct a court of judgment. He is building a church that would give Father attentive glory. This has been a shock to my rant and rave belief system that I brought into the pulpit 38 years ago. I’m not the big-shot I had both wished and assumed. I’m not in the picture; God and others are.

A Letter to the Church, from a Pastor

Personally, I’m thankful for good leadership and staff around me at each of the churches where I’ve served, but my heart goes out to the pastor who doesn’t feel the support of the church and is the only staff member. Remember, you are doing noble work and you are part of something bigger than today, you and even your church! The local church…the body of Christ…is still in God’s plan today…and nothing will overcome that. Praying for you today!

Why Clarence Thomas Uses Simple Words in His Opinions

What I tell my law clerks is that we write these so that they are accessible to regular people. That doesn’t mean that there’s no law in it. But there are simple ways to put important things in language that’s accessible. As I say to them, the beauty, the genius is not to write a 5 cent idea in a ten dollar sentence. It’s to put a ten dollar idea in a 5 cent sentence.

That’s beauty. That’s editing. That’s writing.

What Are We Going To Do With Old Missionaries?

What would God’s people do if our ancient missionaries’ talents were pooled? What could we learn? What would we attempt? Where would we go? How much faith would there be in that room?

The Word-less “Church”

What has gone wrong? At the heart of the mess is a simple phenomenon: the churches seem to have lost a love for and confidence in the Word of God. They still carry Bibles and declare the authority of the Scriptures. They still have sermons based on Bible verses and still have Bible study classes. But not much of the Bible is actually read in their services.

God Doesn’t Build His House By Violence

If we will allow the Holy Spirit to draw us away from our misguided allegiance to nationalism, violence, and war, we can labor with the true Son of David to build a temple from which flows a healing river expanding the borders of peace. But to do this we have to believe in Jesus as the Son of David who builds the house of the Lord without violence.

Admonition: An Unpopular Love Language

Admonition, or any kind of tough love, is a Christian responsibility and an often neglected evidence of the Spirit’s work within us. Perhaps for fear of coming across as judgmental, “holier than thou,” or insensitive, or perhaps out of fear of burning a bridge or just plain fear of man, we can neglect warning one another.

The One Thing the Conversation About Young Adults Leaving the Church Brings Out…

There is one thing missing in all of this…what will they tell you if you actually ask them why they left? Do we even care enough to ask or do we just talk over and around them? Are we connected enough with them to feel like we have space to ask that question? There are many reasons people leave the church and our gut level, first reaction will say more about our own personal leanings than it will be an all-inclusive glimpse into why young people are leaving the church. That is called transference and it is good that we are aware of that tendency.

Better Powerpoint: What We REALLY Remember From PowerPoint Presentations

Study Results

1. Participants remembered an average of 4 slides from a 20-slide, standalone, text-only PowerPoint presentation.
2. Neutral visuals help, but they don’t change the rule of 4. There was a statistically significant difference between the recall of content in text-only slides versus slides that contained text and neutral visuals. However, the recall rate did not exceed 4 slides in any of the 26 PowerPoint deck manipulations included in the study.
3. Participants tended to remember the same content, not slides at random, as was predicted. This means that it may be possible to control what people remember by using a certain set of criteria.
4. For standing out, 5 is an important number. Applying the isolation effect every nth slide (3rd, 4th, or 5th) did not impact the overall recall of an entire deck.However, when a change was made every 5th position (i.e., slides 5, 10, 15, and 20), those slides tended to be remembered better than any other randomly selected slides from that deck. The reverse was true for slides changed in every 3rd and 4th position.

Texas Bans Shooting Immigrants From Helicopters

Officials in Texas announced on Thursday that State Troopers would no longer be allowed to open fire on suspects from helicopters after the recent killing of two immigrants.

The ‘Line’ For Legal Immigration Is Already About 4 Million People Long

It’s why almost everyone pushing an immigration overhaul says any new law has to ease the current backlog of legal green card applicants before putting the estimated 11 million undocumented in line behind them.

Homeless Man’s Honest Deed Rewarded with $16K Donation, and Counting

A homeless man in Kansas City, Mo., made national headlines more than a week ago when he returned a valuable platinum and diamond engagement ring accidentally dropped into his cup of change by a woman offering some extra cash. Now, hundreds of donors have contributed more than $16,000 to a page on GiveForward.com to help Billy Ray Harris get his life back on track. The man’s rewards don’t stop with financial help — the media story helped him connect with a brother in Lubbock, Texas, he hasn’t seen in nearly 30 years.