“[Parents] will make sure Johnny goes to sports, but when it comes to church, … the families that have children in sport will sacrifice church for the sake of their son or daughter’s sports program, so sports is another huge reason why our church is declining,” said one pastor surveyed in the study. And the... Continue Reading

And hard as it can be to have to earn the trust of a congregation, it’s good for you. When you are the new member and nobody knows your dad, you can’t rest on your pk laurels. Nobody is going to try and make friends with you because you are the pk. Nobody is going... Continue Reading

By in large, the family in Western culture has stopped protecting its girls. Today’s young women are growing up way too quickly. We have abandoned our protective role for young women, especially in regards to guiding them in male-female relations and marriage. Hollywood programs geared to teens and young adults often glamorize the idea of... Continue Reading

The biblical concept of a steward is amazingly simple and easy to understand. The steward is one who manages and leads what is not his own, and he leads knowing that he will give an account to the Lord as the owner and ruler of all. Stewards are entrusted with responsibility. Indeed, stewards in the... Continue Reading

Specifically, liberal theology is defined by its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially the natural and social sciences; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience; its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life; its favoring of moral concepts of atonement; and its commitment to make Christianity credible... Continue Reading

When the church is silent in the midst of a holocaust, she ceases to be a real church. Wherever human dignity is under attack, it is the duty of the church and of the Christian to rise up in protest against it. This is not a political matter, and neither is it a temporary matter.... Continue Reading

The real way to love and honor your parents is to simply just love and honor them, despite their flaws, despite the annoying things you disliked when you were a kid. Put up with whatever it is they do that annoys you. Do it, not because you’ll get a tangible benefit, but because they are... Continue Reading

For this reason (among others), during the time of the Reformation, there was a radical shift in emphasis, from the medieval focus on the power of reason as a foundation of knowledge, to a central and foundational focus on the power and necessity of Scripture. This focus was the result, in part, of the biblical... Continue Reading

Familiarity with the things of God will cause you to lose your awe. You’ve spend so much time in Scripture that the grand redemptive narrative, with its expansive wisdom, doesn’t excite you anymore. You’ve spent so much time exegeting the atonement that you stand at the foot of the cross with little weeping and scant... Continue Reading

Being “nice,” of course, is not ultimately what the Christian walk is all about. But neither is it just a low-level option for those who are commanded by Scripture to “speak the truth in love.” Even the order of that commandment—truth first, love second—suggests that being “nice” can’t happen unless such behavior is rooted first... Continue Reading