At least once a month, someone writes me about their youth minister. What to do…what to do…what to do….with the zealous, sincere, yet wrong-headed young fellow who is about to split the church between the youth who would die for him and the adults who want to kill him.
Category Archives: Commentary
Pictures. Story.
The former City Methodist Church building, Gary, Indiana.
Let's Not Be Simplistic About CCM
I’m a big Andrew Sandlin fan, and I’ve never disagreed with him that I can remember, but Sandlin’s sudden enthusiasm for CCM needs a bit of tempering with reality.
One Stubborn Text That Refuses to Go Away: What Does The New Testament Teach About Unbelievers In Public Worship?
The following is my contribution to a question that is dominating discussion among evangelicals: Should worship be “seeker sensitive?” What kind of worship experience should we seek when we want to reach out to the unbelievers in our culture? The New Testament was written by believers and to believers in Jesus Christ and the Gospel.Continue reading “One Stubborn Text That Refuses to Go Away: What Does The New Testament Teach About Unbelievers In Public Worship?”
Spurgeon and Osteen: The Tale of Inaugural Sermons
Charles Spurgeon preached two sermons at key moments in his ministry. The first was his first sermon at New Park Street. Just a boy, he had come to the old church of John Gill, determined that the God of the Gospel would once again be heard. His topic was “The Immutability of God.” The second,Continue reading “Spurgeon and Osteen: The Tale of Inaugural Sermons”
The Sanity Verses
Sometimes, I don’t need inspiration. What I need is just my sanity. I don’t need verses that tell me I’m about to see a miracle. I need something that says God wants me to make it to tomorrow, and still be able to be useful. Sometimes I need to know that God doesn’t always wantContinue reading “The Sanity Verses”
War of the Worldviews: Temptations for the Church in the Information Age
This is one of the longer pieces I’ve posted on IM recently, and is an attempt to understand some of what we see going on among evangelicals these days through the lens of some basic sociology. Is the behavior of many evangelicals an indicator of Biblical faithfulness….or cultural fear? Are conservative churches growing for theContinue reading “War of the Worldviews: Temptations for the Church in the Information Age”
When Loving You Is Killing Me: Thoughts On Pastoring The Small Church
David Hansen writes a wonderful, poignant, real-world account of how four high school boys wearing baseball caps to worship became an issue that, as he puts it, “decapitated Mount Saint Helen’s,” and put his church and ministry through a season of pain, learning, and eventually, growth. Almost every young preacher I know wants to startContinue reading “When Loving You Is Killing Me: Thoughts On Pastoring The Small Church”
Who Let The Theologians In Here? (The SBC, that is.)
UPDATE: I have revised and updated several parts of this essay, to make a few things more clear….and probably less palatable. Russell Moore, Southern Baptist scholar and writer at Touchstone’s Mere Comments blog, dashed off this line a few days ago: The stakes have been raised in the last twenty-four hours as the SBC’s mostContinue reading “Who Let The Theologians In Here? (The SBC, that is.)”
God Of The Hubble Universe
One of my life-long loves is astronomy. I’ve owned some very nice telescopes, and I’ve spent many a clear, cold winter night out on someone’s farm, looking at the glories of the heavens. Since I was a child of the golden age of the space program, my interest in astronomy and NASA made me aContinue reading “God Of The Hubble Universe”
The Internet Monk Archives 