Christian Citizenship
This week, Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States. He deserves our support and respect as Christian citizens. Here is some of what that means.
A Crisis Gospel
Events last week in Washington, D.C. were historic in all the wrong ways. For those of us who train leaders, it was a case study in leadership failures culminating in disgustingly seditious acts. For Christians, it was embarrassing as Capitol-invaders carried symbols of our faith, appropriated...
Why Plan for the Future
A pastor recently shared an observation and a dilemma all leaders face. He told me about his strategic plan for 2020, and how it disintegrated and had to be recreated in a very different form in March 2020 when the COVID pandemic emerged as the defining cultural event for last year. His...
A Gateway Perspective
As many of you in the Gateway community are aware, a few weeks ago the Council of Seminary Presidents (CSP) released a statement that had three major components: Reaffirm our commitment to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM) as our confessional statement, Restate our condemnation of...
Catch Your Breath
A pastor recently summed up his experience in 2020 with the lament, “Man, I just need a win.” He lives in a place the pandemic has ravaged and where governmental restrictions have been severe. Online church has taxed the limits of his, and his church’s, relational reserves. They have not met in...
Institutional Grief
When a group of people like a church or a ministry organization experience a shared loss they feel something called institutional grief. This can be any significant loss—like the death of a colleague, the resignation of a beloved pastor, cancellation of ministry gatherings, or any loss situation...
Courage
Dr. Timothy Tennent, President of Asbury Theological Seminary, has released a new book, For the Body. The subtitle and purpose of the book is recovering a theology of gender, sexuality, and the human body. It is a proactive statement of the biblical and theological underpinnings which support...
Missions Giving Must Stay Strong
Southern Baptists have proven quite resilient through the pandemic. Southern Baptists have continued to financially support the ministries of their churches and, through them, the global work sustained by the Cooperative Program. Gateway has benefited from those gifts and we are grateful.
Embracing Change
A worn out adage says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” That saying must have been coined by a frustrated leader trying to get a fossilized organization to adopt new methods. But today, many previously set-in-their-ways churches are learning all kinds of new methods—motivated by their...
Christmas Creep
A phrase has been coined to describe the Christmas season expanding earlier and earlier into the Fall—Christmas creep. Despite the objections of a frustrated minority, advertisers, retailers, and entertainment companies are expanding Christmas in response to popular demand. Surveys show most...