I recently overhead a friend of mine commenting about the worship band at church. Basically, he felt that it was too showy. He mentioned how one of the guitarist “struts around stage”. This quickly got me thinking. Being a committed Christian who has attended a lot of church services and being a musician who has
Book Review: Singled Out, Part 2
(In this second part of the review, I summarize the paradigm contained in the book Singled Out.) It would be difficult to argue that “love” (romance) and sex aren’t the primary values in our culture today (only challenged by money and power). We know virtually everyone deeply desires to be loved, and we believe the
Book Review: Singled Out, Part 1
Singled Out is the best book I’ve read in years—I can hardly say enough good about it. It directly addresses a couple of issues most fundamental to those of us living in our western culture, and does so in a way no one else that I am aware of has done. Beyond that, the conclusions
Movie Review: Tangled
Tangled is of course Disney’s adaptation of the classic fairy tale of Rapunzel. It fits right into the classic Disney animated musical style with princesses, love, villains, and a happily ever after. I’m trying to process what I think about the movie, which is the reason I’m writing this review. I felt the way they
Black Friday Overshadowing Thanksgiving
A friend of mine pointed this out: it’s ironic that the holiday focused on being thankful is becoming overshadowed by a day most focused on getting things we don’t have. It’s like “We’re thankful for all the black Friday sales and thankful for all the money we have, so that why can go buy a
Thanksgiving, Communion, Church, Family
Tomorrow Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. The holiday has become known as a time to gather with one’s extended family and have a feast. I heard someone (Frank Viola in Reimagining Church I believe) say that the Thanksgiving holiday is probably the best representation we have of what communion ought to look like. Imagine communion as loving,
Outline: Chronicles
I’ve created an outline for the book of Chronicles. You can view it by clicking on the following link: Chronicles Outline. photo credit: Wonderlane via photopin cc
Outline: Samuel / Kings Part II
I’ve created an outline for the books of Samuel and Kings. This second part covers the kings of Judah and Israel during the divided kingdom. You can view it by clicking on the following link: Samuel / Kings Outline Part II. photo credit: Wonderlane via photopin cc
Outline: Samuel / Kings Part I
I’ve created an outline for the books of Samuel and Kings. This first part covers Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon. You can view it by clicking on the following link: Samuel / Kings Outline Part I. photo credit: Wonderlane via photopin cc
Leadership in Organic Church
I believe leadership is one of the most confusing subjects about “organic” or “simple” church. We say that there aren’t leaders in the sense of a person or two doing all of the “leading”, making the decisions, running the meetings, doing all the teaching, etc. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t leadership. There most