Be a follower of Jesus, we’re told. Learn from Jesus how to do life. Get to know Jesus. Sounds good right? But how do we do it? Think of the people you know best. How did you get to know them? You shared experiences with them. You talked with them. You got to know them […]
Read & Grow / How to be a Christian without Going to Church
Surf to Google. Type the phrase “Can I be a Christian…” into the search box. Helpful as ever, Google will start suggesting popular queries. The top search? “Can I be a Christian without going to church?” This is a question people are asking. They are asking it a lot. I’m a Pastor’s Kid who grew up […]
Can you be Christian without going to Church? Think about this before you decide.
How do you answer this question? A friend of mine, Kelly Bean, is in the critical last mile of having her book published. She wasn’t sure if her publisher was going to like her idea for a title. I can understand why. It’s a Christian publisher offering a book for Christians. Her title idea? “How […]
Why The Church Has To Stop Saying Sexual Sin Is The Most Important Thing.
Somewhere back in time someone decided that sexual sin is the worst kind of sin. In many churches sexual sin is the line over which you may not cross. Sex before marriage is the worst thing a Christian teenager can do. Sleeping around is the worst thing a Christian woman can do. Looking at pornography […]
I Quit the Culture War
(I wrote this in 2012, but the situation has only gotten worse. I feel even more strongly than I did then.) It’s an election year, apparently. I’ve noticed the sprouting yard signs and the increasing emotional urgency in political conversations. The internets buzz with people making their case and stomping their virtual feet. As a […]
Myth #5: Ignore Your Emotions and They Will Just Go Away
And now onto the last myth in this series: Myth #5. Ignore your emotions and they will just go away. This is the myth that does the most damage. The body count is enormous—marriages ended, relationships broken, churches split and destroyed—all because people with influence were unwilling to stop and look at the uncomfortable emotions […]
If you feel like God, You will do justice.
I attended The Justice Conference in Portland in 2012. This is part 2 of my reflections. You can catch up on part 1 (Love, Justice & the Problem of Indifferent Christians) here. Part 2: If You Feel Like God, You Will Do Justice. As I sat through speaker after speaker at the conference, one question kept surfacing for […]
Love, Justice & the Problem of Indifferent Christians.
Part 1: Digesting the Justice Conference In 2012 I attended the Justice Conference, here in Portland. It was amazing. Like conferences often are, it was a fire hose of information. When I left the conference late Saturday night, I was over-full. I wanted to reflect, to not open my mouth for weeks. The friend I […]
5 Things You Learned About Emotion in Church That Aren’t True.
Have you ever experienced a paradigm shift? This isn’t just learning new information. This is when you discover something that changes the way you see everything. It’s the difference between thinking that the earth might revolve around the sun, instead of the other way around. I’m in the middle of a paradigm shift right now. […]
Rich Mullins on what Christianity is Not.
Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved […]