Some pastors preach boring sermons. Some church music is dull. But here’s the thing: If Jesus had been boring, the disciples wouldn’t have followed him and the Pharisees wouldn’t have killed him.So if you’re bored, don’t waste another minute. If your church service feels like a failed pep rally that never leads to the actual game, then it’s time for you to follow Jesus onto the field where the opposition is real and the stakes are extraordinary. It will get messy. It won’t always b...

Working against racism is part of what it means to call Jesus Lord and Savior.Most of us don’t need to make speeches. We need to make friends. This is the core message of Black and White: racism can be disrupted by relationships. If you will risk forging friendships with those who do not look like you, it will change the way you see the world, and that could change the world.The authors, Teesha Hadra, a young African American woman, and John Hambrick, a sixty-year-...

Working against racism is part of what it means to call Jesus Lord and Savior.Most of us don't need to make speeches. We need to make friends. This is the core message of Black and White: racism can be disrupted by relationships. If you will risk forging friendships with those who do not look like you, it will change the way you see the world, and that could change the world.The coauthors, Teesha Hadra, a young African American woman, and John Hamb...

Race and racism have played a divisive and defining role throughout much of America's history. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and Ku Klux Klan terrorism have inflicted deep psychic wounds, social disparities, and economic disadvantages that have diminished the promise of equal rights and opportunities for all.While much progress in race relations has been made in recent years-including the election of Barack Obama as President of the United State-it's clear that our journey t...

Leading a counseling group is different from leading a general discipleship group, even if both exist at the same church. A counseling group focuses on a specific need, garners heightened levels of vulnerability about matters of greater sensitivity, and requires more skill and intentionality from its leader. When a layperson is well-equipped, this kind of ministry is tremendously rewarding, as they see God multiply the work he did in their life with people walking a similar journey.

The mid-nineteenth century is a gold mine for contemporary scholars interested in American Protestant ecclesiology. There one will find the extensive writings of John Nevin who came to the notice of the theological world with The Anxious Bench, a critique of the "quackery" of Protestant revivalism. Influenced by a critical appropriation of cutting-edge contemporary German theology, he came to believe that the church was not "invisible," but the visible manifestation of Jesus Christ's incar...