My husband and I have recently started church-hunting. As a part of that process, we - like so many others of our generation - turned to the Internet first. We used Google maps to identify the churches nearby, and then to narrow down the prospects we started visiting websites: some good, some bad, some incomprehensible. In light of that, I thought it might be useful to offer up a list of things I, and most seekers (believers or otherwise), might be searching for when we find your church on the web. [Click title to read more.]
Category: ministry
Bringing Biblical Hospitality Into The Present Day
Outside the church, we have to handle hospitality on our own. Believers still open their hearts and homes to people, but more likely than not we already know those people, and like them. We entertain, but entertaining doesn't always mean we're "loving strangers." Most of us won't come into direct contact with weary travelers crossing the land and looking for a place to stay. So what does hospitality look like in the modern age?
Focusing on Ourselves
What Jesus demonstrates here to the disciples is that it isn't our job to police the world in His name. If others are glorifying Christ - if others are doing good works in His name - Jesus' response is "Don't stop them." Don't hold people back. Don't intervene. Even if you think you can do it better. Even if you don't get it. Even if it's irritating. [Click title to read more.]
The Forgotten Children
There are girls I think of often. One was my best friend as a child. In the third grade, we cut holes into trash bags and then put them on so we could be black horses, and pranced around in the yard neighing and pretending uncooked spaghetti was hay. She visited me all the time, … Continue reading The Forgotten Children
How To Be A Christian Online
As Christians, we tend to talk a lot about the Internet - what should and should not be accessible on it and how we should or should not handle that - but not about who we are on the Internet. In what ways does our faith inform our technology? Or, more to the point: how do we behave like Christians on the internet? [Click title to read more.]
Defining “Neighbor” Beyond Convenience
A lot of us have an idea in mind of who our "neighbors" ought to be. They are kind, benign people who live near us; they are sometimes homeless, but always grateful and quiet; they are people willing to accept our kindness and generally deserving of it. All too often, my neighbors are people it does not inconvenience me to love. [Click title to read more.]
It’s Okay For Us To Be Wrong
We want to have the "right" answers all the time. We want to look like we know what we're doing. We hate the idea of "looking bad" in front of the world. We like to focus on the positive. But we're human. [Click title to read more.]
The Need for Immediacy
Convenience and multi-tasking and ease aren't bad things. We shouldn't scoff at them. It doesn't hone your character or make you morally superior to sit in line to cash a check rather than to do it electronically. But in our pursuit of convenience and in our attempts to make life easier for ourselves, we must never sweep others aside. [Click title to read more.]
A Quick Christian Guide To Supporting The Depressed and Those Bereaved By Suicide
The church has a role to play in our culture's understanding of suicide and of depression - as a place of healing, we have something to give. As a practical matter, and because of my own experiences, I felt inspired to offer some tips on how to address the way we talk (or don't) about mental illness and depression in our own congregations and, by extension, to minister to the families of those who have taken their own lives. [Click title to read more.]
One Reason Children Raised In The Church Leave It Behind
Few young Christians are prepared in a rigorous, individual way, to continue to choose Christianity for themselves beyond the walls of their church or an "inherited" faith. Not many have the tools to, as the Bible puts it, "work out" their salvation - to go beyond the commitment of a moment to the commitment of a lifetime. [Click title to read more.]
Samaritan's Song 