The topic was eloquence, something Christians had been conflicted about since the first-century church when Paul wrote that in bringing the gospel, he did not come with “eloquence.” A few centuries later, Saint Augustine wrestled with the value o...
You're right, Ruth. You did screw up my career. You screwed it up good. Best thing you ever did, matter of fact. But you know something? It's okay. Because if it was between the church and you, there was no contest. Even with al the ups and downs and...
The verbal tool of exploring mystery together is not confrontation or preaching but dialogue. We subject ourselves to the same questions we pose to others, and as we traverse them together, we may arrive at surprising conclusions we could never have ...
Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate. In this respect there was in the past a change of m...
As a teenager, I began to question the Great Christian Sorting System. My gay friends in high school were kind and funny and loved me, so I suspected that my church had placed them in the wrong category... Injustices in the world needed to be address...
We must acknowledge that all we have are, at times very differing, interpretations of what Jesus was all about-and these interpretations, as they are collected in the New Testament, have been written in particular situations by men, none of whom ques...
God has equipped us with his Holy Spirit simply to tell our own story---the good, the bad, and the real. The best part is no one can argue with us. It's our story. And when others realize you don't need a degree in evangelism, they become empowered t...
Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God- a "foursome," as it were-- for the Ch...
God uses prepared vessels, no substitute. God is not looking for a rocket scientist, he's looking for those with a mind, and then he will finish the rest. It's like, 'God, here I am, send me,' and He will do the rest. He will prepare you. He will pro...
On my bedside table is a snow globe with a winterscape inside. Church, park bench, girl standing shin-deep in snow. Tip the snow globe over and a blizzard of slow snow falls over church and bench and girl. What is it about snow globes that makes them...
The problem with people today, is, they have religions but they have no spirituality. They go to church but they cannot even manage the condition of their own souls. They take pride to state the name of their religions and broadcast these things on f...
It is a wicked sophistry to justify the worldliness of the Church by the cross of Christ.
The Church is larger than any one nation or any one political scene.
The most important criterion is this: hire someone whose character and humility and attitude you would like to have reproduced in your church and in yourself.
My ordination in the Church of God in Christ was at age 9, and I later became a Baptist minister, which I am today.
It is not classified as a pagan religion. The so-called New Age activities and this are not called religions and therefore don't come under the prohibition of mingling church and state that we have in this country.
This I have observed: There are no language barriers in the Church. There is a mighty power that transcends the power of messages conveyed by words alone, and this is the power of messages communicated by the Spirit to our hearts.
It's amazing to me the number of people who will volunteer to help at church but won't lift a finger to help at home!
Yet for my part, deeply as I am moved by the religious architecture of the Middle Ages, I cannot honestly say that I ever felt the slightest emotion in any modern Gothic church.
Jesus is more likely to lead you across the street than across the ocean.
...people don't think in churches. [ ]
