“Applying the Bible” doesn’t quite get at it. That comes across to me as a bit quiet and clean. Gardening is full of grunting, sweat, dirt–and sometimes holding your nose. Read the Bible with a pitch fork, garden rake, and shovel in your hands–not with rubber gloves and tongs delicately turning over crackling pages of an ancient... Continue Reading

It was a sneaky thing that Victor Hugo did, publishing this book 150 years ago. We can’t have Bibles in schools anymore, but still we have “Les Miserables,” which puts forth the essence of the Christian faith as well as John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke — and with a much better soundtrack, it must be... Continue Reading

The church is thankful for Dr. Bumgardner’s thirty years of faithful preaching….Preaching that has been faithful to the Word of God and to the Glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only has he been a faithful preacher, but also a faithful pastor to his flock and to many others in our community with his... Continue Reading

Deborah Conner Jones, wife of PCA Teaching Elder James A. Jones, Jr., went to be with the Lord Jesus Christ on Saturday, December 29, 2012, after a lengthy bout with metastatic breast cancer. She is survived by her husband and two daughters, Sarah E. Jones and Lydia R. Jones. Shortly before her passing into glory... Continue Reading

Mel: “She is now in Heaven. I’m sorry for this horrible news. She fell yesterday and her artificial knee twisted and cut a vein. She simply lost too much blood to recover. Please pray for me, three kids and two grand kids and a huge extended family.”   Cindie Pike, serving with her husband Teaching... Continue Reading

Christian leaders and commentators find it useful to cast the church in a negative light. The emphasis on bad news about Christianity, regardless of its accuracy, is a powerful way of attracting listeners, readers, and financial support. We term this rhetorical strategy as the “Christian-failure narrative.”…When Christian leaders portray Christians as amoral and hypocritical, it... Continue Reading

Again this year we are featuring a summary of the top 50 stories.  We are breaking the list into 5 parts, 10 a day; starting from the bottom and going up with 30 through 21     Number 30 At the PCA General Assembly: Overtures Committee report A surprise (to many) vote on the subject... Continue Reading

Religion, for college students, is not necessarily the old-fashioned ‘organized’ religion handed down to them, but rather something that many of them would call spirituality rather than religion. Douglas and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, authors of No Longer Invisible: Religion in University Education, on how higher education found faith.   During the last four years, we crisscrossed... Continue Reading

Although it has not yet been determined who was behind Monday’s violence, the Muslim terrorist group Boko Haram has targeted Christians in the region for several years, killing 37 believers in a Christmas Day bombing last year at St. Theresa Catholic Church near the country’s capital, Abuja.     The aftermath of last year’s Christmas... Continue Reading

One of the principles I learn from the Old Testament is this: the whole person is to be engaged in the experience of worship. Certainly, the minds, hearts, and souls of the worshipers are to be engaged, but when we come to worship on Sunday morning, we do not come as disembodied minds, hearts, or... Continue Reading