Church

If I could share just one message in light of the high-profile Christians who have recently made public announcements renouncing their faith, it would be this: you should lose your faith…if it is in anyone other than Jesus. 

Isn’t there something more important than how many doors you knocked on or event invites you’ve distributed? Like getting to know people?

I appreciated this encouraging article by Daniel Ritchie about how God is at work through His church. As I shared in a blog post a few months back, God is doing great things worldwide using His people—but we won’t hear about them if we just keep watching the news or reading social media.

Today’s blog features an article by Whitney Woollard titled, “Delighting in Authority: How to Create a Culture of Happy Complementarians.” My daughter Angela passed it on to me, and it’s terrific.

On Sunday, the Houston Chronicle released the first of a three-part series titled “Abuse of Faith: 20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reform.” I've included a few excerpts from the article—though please read it for yourself. (And remember, while this article and the investigation focuses on Southern Baptist churches, it largely applies to all evangelical churches.)

The evangelical landscape is littered with the carcasses of lives and ministries decimated by sexual sin. For every well-known Christian television personality or evangelical leader who commits sexual immorality, there are any number of lesser-known local pastors, Bible teachers, and parachurch workers who quietly resign or are fired for the same. 

Question from a reader:

I’m currently reading Heaven (excellent!), and help was offered in finding a new church with good suggestions. We moved to a new town earlier this year and the difficulty for me lies in the use of drums, which perhaps should not be a factor. However, as chairman of our music committee in our former church, I studied music in the Bible and found no use of drums. Perhaps they are placed among the other percussion instruments, but I have not yet been able to justify their use when some congregants must wear ear plugs or skip the preliminary “worship and praise” in an otherwise Biblically centered church. Still praying for God’s leading, would appreciate your thoughts as well.

As I’ve told many evangelical leaders, having raised two daughters I deeply respect, having a wife I deeply respect, and working with women whom I deeply respect, I bristle at the dismissive tone toward women I hear from many male evangelical leaders.

Last week, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and The Gospel Coalition hosted the MLK50 Conference, which focused on the state of racial unity in the church and the culture 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of the founding of my home church, Good Shepherd Community Church in Boring, Oregon. When the church started, I was a full-time pastor at the ripe old age of 22! I’d like to share some memories from the past four decades, tying them together with thoughts about the value and importance of local churches.