In late March, 1807, the British slave trade came to an end. One of the key figures in the battle against the British slave trade was an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was short—about five feet, three inches in stature—and suffered from poor health, but he was eloquent and witty. He became a member […]
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Sermon: That Awkward Text About Noah that No One Wants to Preach
In every Sunday School lesson and Bible storybook about Noah that I recall from my childhood, the ark-builder’s story ended in triumph. In sermons, if they mentioned this text at all, it ended with a “curse of Ham.” Noah saves the animals and sees the sign of God’s covenant—and, with that, the account of Noah […]
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Church History: Forget About St. Valentine! Today Is St. Cyril’s Day
The Magnificent Moravian Failures Who Weren’t Failures at All In the ninth century A.D.—four hundred years or so after the fall of the Western Empire—a prince in the land of Moravia asked the emperor of the Eastern Empire to send missionaries to his people. The prince’s motives were primarily political. He needed the support of […]
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Culture: The Failure of White Evangelicals in the Civil Rights Movement
A few months ago, Justin Taylor interviewed four evangelical historians about the role of Southern white evangelicals in the American Civil Rights Movement. It is a lengthy and painful read, but it provides a much-needed perspective on white evangelicals’ persistent failure to challenge systemic racism. Here are a few excerpts: Matt Hall: The unfortunate reality […]
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Blog: Most-Read Posts of 2016 and Plans for 2017
Around twenty-seven thousand people racked up nearly one hundred thousand views of this blog in 2016. If you were one of them, thank you! Since there are no advertisements on my site, I don’t profit from any of the content. And so, if you’ve profited from what I’ve written, please consider purchasing a book (or two […]
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Advent: Finding Joy When God Seems Silent
Advent is the season when we meditate on experiences of waiting and silence in the Scriptures. By coming to terms with the waiting that we see in Scripture, we prepare our souls for those moments when God seems silent in our own lives. One of the ways we prepare ourselves for this silence is by […]
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Writing: Choosing the Right Tools for Writing
Nearly everything I’ve taught or written in the past several years has been handwritten with a fountain pen before it was reduced to pixels for the purposes of editing and publication. As a result, I’ve owned more than a dozen different pens, scores of notebooks, and many ounces of ink. Many of my students have […]
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Family Ministry: Discipleship and Family in African-American History
A few months ago, I sat down with my colleagues Kevin Smith and Kevin Jones to discuss the dynamics of discipleship and family ministry in African-American communities. Rev. Smith is the executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland and Delaware. Dr. Jones is a scholar of the history of education and coauthor of the […]
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Leadership: Five Practices that Every Leader Needs
According to Daniel Montgomery and Jared Kennedy, effective leadership calls for the practice of five principles in the life of the leader:
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Leadership: “No, You Idiot, Your Team at Home …”
Dayton Moore, general manager of the Kansas City Royals, had a friend who asked him from time to time how his team was doing. Moore would begin talking about his baseball team and the friend would respond, “No, you idiot, … your team at home”—reminding Moore that his faithfulness as a husband and father mattered […]
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Church History: The Racist Heresy in Southern Baptist History
The founders of the Southern Baptist Convention and of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary were zealous defenders of biblical orthodoxy. They were also heretics.
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Writing: Using Evernote to Write Your Book
Evernote has been an essential tool in the completion of my past two books, and several of my doctoral students have asked me to describe how I use Evernote to move projects from initial ideas and tables of contents to completed book manuscripts.
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Leadership: A Kingdom-Shaped Vision for Church Discipline
“To him who … made us a kingdom, be glory and dominion forever,” John declared in the opening paragraphs of the apocalypse he penned on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:5-6). Living in union with Christ the King, God’s new covenant people have been made into “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). But what does […]
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Culture: The Gospel and Racial Reconciliation
Racial reconciliation is not primarily about healing the wounds of racial subjugation that so deeply scar our nation’s history. Racial reconciliation is not primarily about seeking justice for immigrants and refugees. It’s not about reducing conflict between persons with differing concentrations of melanin. It’s not even primarily about a systemic lack of opportunities for certain ethnicities—though all […]
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Leadership: Learning to Do Less So Parents in Your Church Can Do More
Parents in your ministry don’t have time to disciple their children—or, at least, that’s the way many of them feel when they look at their weekly to-do lists. According to comprehensive surveys and interviews with hundreds of parents, half of all church-involved parents have simply resigned themselves to the notion that their families are too busy […]
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Leadership: Your Church Is Not Your Platform
In 1932, the University of Southern California started stenciling “Property of USC” on athletic t-shirts for the purpose of preventing theft. Their anti-theft strategy backfired when the stenciled attire became more popular than the original unstenciled t-shirts. USC turned this problem into a profit by producing and selling “Property of USC” shirts to students. Today, […]
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Leadership: Pastors and Professors as Spiritual Directors
I’ve read more books on pastoral ministry and leadership in my life than I care to recall. Looking back over those many books, I find myself wishing I had returned more often to three particular texts. None of these books focuses on any leadership technique or organizational strategy. There is, of course, a time and […]
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Family Ministry: Three Models for Ministry to Families
When asked to provide a step-by-step process for implementing family ministry, Mark DeVries jokingly provided this progression: “Try something. Fail. Try something else. Fail again. Try something else. Stumble on one thing that works. Repeat what works. Try something else … you get the idea.” I appreciate Mark’s honesty and good humor, and there’s certainly […]
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Leadership: The Important of a Pastor’s Presence with His People
United with Christ the perfect shepherd and sacrificial lamb, all of God’s people become sheep—but not all of God’s people become shepherds. In the new covenant, the elders of the church are uniquely designated as shepherds who join in the work of the Chief Shepherd (John 21:15-19; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Peter 5:4). But what does […]
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Proclamation: The Search for a Shining Face
What does the book of Ecclesiastes have to say to believers in Jesus Christ today? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Sure, the book starts with the refrain, “Emptiness! Emptiness! Everything is emptiness”—but it doesn’t end there.
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