Culture

Read more about the article Happy Birthday To Our [not so] Christian Nation

Happy Birthday To Our [not so] Christian Nation

America Was Never a Christian Nation Folks

“We need to take back America for Jesus and make this once again a Christian nation.”  How many times have you heard this battle-cry from Christians?  It goes something like this:

Our founding fathers founded this country on Christian principles and ever since then, we’ve digressed; and now, because of our bad decisions, we are at a place of immense depravity.  And if the Christians don’t lead the way in bringing us back to God, there’s going to be some hell to pay from a wrathful God.

(more…)

Continue ReadingHappy Birthday To Our [not so] Christian Nation
Read more about the article Should Christians Practice Yoga?

Should Christians Practice Yoga?

Some questions we ask today would simply baffle our ancestors. When Christians ask whether believers should practice yoga, they are asking a question that betrays the strangeness of our current cultural moment — a time in which yoga seems almost mainstream in America.

It was not always so. The embrace of yoga is a symptom of our postmodern spiritual confusion, and, to our shame, this confusion reaches into the church.

(more…)

Continue ReadingShould Christians Practice Yoga?
Read more about the article All Of Society Suffers When Boys Can’t Become Men

All Of Society Suffers When Boys Can’t Become Men

About 150 years ago, Western men began forming and joining organizations that promoted a noble vision of manhood. That infrastructure created some of the finest men the world has ever known. We called them “the greatest generation.” They built the most prosperous economy in history and presided over an era of unprecedented peace.

Yet for the past fifty years we have been dismantling the very infrastructure that made these men great, in the name of gender equality.

(more…)

Continue ReadingAll Of Society Suffers When Boys Can’t Become Men
Read more about the article Can Spiritual Gifts Build Up The Church Online?

Can Spiritual Gifts Build Up The Church Online?

And He gave some as E-postles, E-prophets, E-vangelists, E-pastors, and E-teachers for the E-quipping of the saints for the work of service and E-difying the body of Christ.

E-Ministry to an E-generation?

There can never be a complete disconnect from organic stone & mortar ministry (1 Peter 2:5). Likewise,  the church cannot cease E-xtending our flesh wrapped hands in fellowship. But, she also cannot reject the E-world reality. How we minister to one another and those outside of the church, must include E-vangleism.

(more…)

Continue ReadingCan Spiritual Gifts Build Up The Church Online?
Read more about the article How Christians Should Watch Movies

How Christians Should Watch Movies

Art is to be enjoyed, admired, and appreciated for its beauty as well as the medium in which that beauty is expressed. Art is also an outward expression of the beliefs and values of its artist. Art is beauty but it is also a message. Unfortunately, people often watch movies as passive observers treating the stories in movies as mere entertainment without giving due attention to the message being presented.  We believe that every expression of art, whether it is a movie, a song, or a painting, is a medium to communicate a certain worldview of its creator with an accompanying message. We also believe it is our responsibility as humans (created Images of God endowed with the ability to create) to discern whether this worldview is in line with the Christian worldview expressed by the Author of Life through Scripture.

(more…)

Continue ReadingHow Christians Should Watch Movies
Read more about the article What Would Gun-Toting Jesus Say About School Shootings?

What Would Gun-Toting Jesus Say About School Shootings?

Eugene Cho is pastor in a community near Seattle Pacific University where a gunman opened fire recently. That event hit pretty close to home. So have the other 74 school shootings that have occurred since the Sandy Hook event a couple of years ago. Pastor Cho considers what response disciples of Jesus might give to these atrocious events.

“I can’t bring back your child but I want to pray, work, and do whatever I can – by God’s grace – to ensure that something like this will never happen again.”

If not now, then when? If not for our children, then for who?

readmore

(more…)

Continue ReadingWhat Would Gun-Toting Jesus Say About School Shootings?
Read more about the article Sunday Sermon: How The Bible Critiques Western Views Of Family

Sunday Sermon: How The Bible Critiques Western Views Of Family

Jeremy Pryor offers a compelling contrast between western views of family and the biblical view of family. The insights he offers here will be extremely valuable to anyone who is looking to strengthen their family culture but can’t find much inspiration for that from American culture. The Bible has a great deal to say about family, but the lenses through which we read the bible as 21st century Americans often prohibit us from seeing the vision for family that is given in Scripture. This sermon helps add clarity so that we can catch the Bible’s vision for family. Let us know what you think in the comments below. (more…)

Continue ReadingSunday Sermon: How The Bible Critiques Western Views Of Family
Read more about the article A Story About Loving Ones Neighbor

A Story About Loving Ones Neighbor

Our first shock when we moved into our low-income apartment in a Midwestern inner city was the amount of substance abuse that surrounded us. Suddenly, alcohol is no longer fun. Instead it is a substance that changes my friends and neighbors, making them unpredictable and unsafe; it leaves me feeling helpless and afraid and vulnerable. It makes me question my faith in God, struggling to find hope for those who are addicted. In my neighborhood, it was becoming clear: righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit were tied to breaking the chains of my neighbors’ addictions. Since so many were caught in the cycle of stumbling and picking themselves up again, it became good for me to not drink, as a way to stand with the brothers and sisters I was learning to love. I didn’t give up alcohol because I wanted to flee the evils of the world. I gave up alcohol as a way of engaging the evils of the world.

readmore

(more…)

Continue ReadingA Story About Loving Ones Neighbor
Read more about the article Jesus Is Better Than Religion

Jesus Is Better Than Religion

Jefferson Bethke released video a few years ago that went viral. In the video, he ranted about how he loves Jesus but hates religion. There is a story behind those statements. Jeff shares his story in this magazine article.

“People lamented that they had tried Christianity, and it didn’t work. But last time I checked, you don’t try Christianity; either your heart has been transformed by Jesus or it hasn’t. But you can try religion. You can try to follow the rules. You can try to climb up to heaven. But all you’ll do is white knuckle your way to religious despair. It won’t work. It never does.”

readmore

(more…)

Continue ReadingJesus Is Better Than Religion
Read more about the article Modest Is Hottest

Modest Is Hottest

Women aren’t the only ones called to be modest, for the same reason that firefighters aren’t the only ones called to be courageous. What I’m trying to do is present a slightly more complex vision of modesty. One that puts the onus on all people — male and female alike — and extends beyond legalistic bickering about precisely how many centimeters of skin one should leave uncovered.

readmore

(more…)

Continue ReadingModest Is Hottest
Read more about the article Whom Will You Serve?

Whom Will You Serve?

Service necessarily implies one person attending to the needs or desires of another. If I pour myself a cup of coffee, I am serving no one. There is no such thing as self-serve, not at a gas station, a yogurt shop, or in life. Rejecting all masters and choosing autonomy is really just one of the contemporary “gods” of self-indulgence. Not that this is new. The me generation is not just one generation. It is as old as humanity.

readmore

(more…)

Continue ReadingWhom Will You Serve?
Read more about the article Waking Up From The American Dream

Waking Up From The American Dream

You don’t always know you’re asleep—until you wake up. And then you see the world in a completely new way.

Two years after that first life-changing trip to Kenya, I brought Maureen, Compassion-sponsored-child-turned- fearless-Kenyan-leader who rescues girls from unthinkable situations to America for strategic planning and fundraising.

I will never forget the moment we pulled into the driveway of my nice two-story brick house and I saw my home from her perspective.

readmore

(more…)

Continue ReadingWaking Up From The American Dream

End of content

No more pages to load

Newer Posts