Green Valley Baptist Church in St. Joseph, Missouri, celebrated their 50th anniversary this past weekend. They were my first pastorate (1982-89). They somehow survived! It was my pleasure to preach on Sunday as part of their weekend-long celebration.
Hugh Hefner died a few days ago...
Over this past weekend, many professional athletes and related personnel engaged in various forms of protest, spurred on by recent comments by President Trump. Many people are now expressing opinions about those opinions and the President’s opinions and how they were expressed. My question about...
A common myth in our culture is “all religions are the same.” Many religions use the same vocabulary (for example - love, grace, peace), providing supposed evidence for their commonality. That kind of superficial analysis contributes to a false sense of similarity, but falls short of proving the...
“What did you do on your summer vacation?” is a cliché writing assignment children do to get back into the swing of school responsibilities. We are a bit beyond that as a graduate school, but we still enjoy catching up with each other when faculty members return from summer ministry travels.
When hurting people are in crisis, petty divisions just don’t matter. South Texans and their friends are showing the best of the American spirit. The Christian worldview still prevalent in these communities undergirds this effort. Churches have taught servant leadership and the importance of...
Racism is a serious problem in our world. It’s a global problem – not just an American problem or a black/white problem. Confronting it requires concentrated effort from serious-minded people who intend real change. Christians must be on the forefront of this effort.
Asking people to respond by making public commitments in a worship service seems to be less and less common today. There are several reasons for this. Some pastors are reluctant to ask for decisions because they don’t want to embarrass people. Some don’t want to ask for decisions because they...
Last week, the old-left fired a Google engineer for questioning their views about diversity and the alt-right disrupted a community with anti-diversity protests. On Sunday, I spoke in two churches – one predominantly African-American and the other predominantly Korean. This evening, I drove...
Eric Liddell, Olympic champion and missionary to China, was made famous by the movie Chariots of Fire (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1982). A central feature of the movie was Liddell’s conviction about the Sabbath which prohibited him from running on Sunday.