I am continually faced with my powerlessness over gun violence and its traumatic effect(s) upon me personally and the community in which I live. This past Wednesday afternoon, my four-year old daughter and I, heard around 10 gunshots as we stood near my bedroom window. This is the second time in two weeks that we…
3 Ways Seminary Prepared Me for Church Planting
Church planting is a pioneering ministry. Blazing trails. Cutting new paths. Exiting the box of institutional restraints and “the way things are done” to reach new people in new ways with the Gospel. The idealized, going-rogue vision of starting a new worshiping community lends itself to the assumption that institutional structures of the established church…
The Shack: A Movie Review
A while back, my covenant group at church read William P. Young’s novel, The Shack. Honestly, I do not believe I even finished it—although I remember being gratified that this book, then making the rounds in conservative Evangelical circles, depicted God as an African American woman! Still, my wife, Wendy, reminds me that I was dismissive…