Of wonders and wounds, cloister gardens and chasmic Christianity
This article originally appeared on January 5, 2021 at Baptist News Global. The day I walked out of church, I had just finished assisting our children’s church lesson about how God created the world in six literal days. God had put the first two humans in a garden with one rule, and then sent them into […]
How John MacArthur loves the Bible but not his neighbor
This article originally appeared on July 28, 2020 at Baptist News Global. As he walked across the stage July 26 to the large, wooden pulpit, the auditorium that seats 3,500 people was filled with non-masked, non-socially distanced conservative evangelicals with another 1,000 people gathered outside who all jumped to their feet for a standing ovation. The […]
Eucharistic Presence For a Church in Exile
This article originally appeared on July 24, 2020 at Worship Overflow and reflects my desires at the time for churches entering into the Covid-19 pandemic. Little did the Church know at the beginning of March 2020, the opportunity that was about to present itself to us. Many of us have lived our entire lives attending […]
The Jesus-Formed, Embodied Worship of a Black Holiness Church (1895-1913)
This article originally appeared on June 12, 2020 on Medium. It was a paper that I submitted for a class at Northern Seminary. Having spent my entire life in overwhelmingly white churches, it wasn’t until I had reached my twenties that I started to become aware of the water I was swimming in. I had […]
Four Views of Church and Culture
This article originally appeared on June 7, 2020 on Medium. It was a paper that I submitted for a class at Northern Seminary. Bob Dylan once said that popular culture “was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk on it.” His lyrics […]
Worshiping With Our Universal Family
This article originally appeared on March 28, 2020 at Worship Overflow and reflects my desires at the time for churches entering into the Covid-19 pandemic. As the coronavirus spreads throughout the world, many churches are canceling their services for the foreseeable future. I obviously have not done an exhaustive study of how churches are handling […]
The Church in Lonely Exile
This article originally appeared on March 23, 2020 at Worship Overflow and reflects my desires at the time for churches entering into the Covid-19 pandemic. As our days of staying home due to the coronavirus turn into weeks, Christians are feeling something they have most likely never felt on Sunday mornings before, at least in the West. […]
Loving Our Lonely Exile
This article originally appeared on March 23, 2020 at Worship Overflow and reflects my desires at the time for churches entering into the Covid-19 pandemic. One of my deepest wounds that I’ve carried in life has been the wound of identifying with lonely exile. Last year, as I was talking about my career and ministry […]