Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
7 Ways to Introduce Advent to Your Congregation
How might we introduce Advent to a congregation that has never observed the season? Based on experience with three such congregations, I offer the following general strategies. 1. Tell the congregation why Advent is...
5 Ways Your Church Can Emphasize Thankfulness
When you think about the seasons of the church year, what comes to mind? Certainly Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, and perhaps even Pentecost makes your list. But no one ever talks about a "Season of...
Blue laws, Swiss Cake Rolls and reasonable expectations
By John Pierce Last Sunday I enjoyed talking with some church lay leaders about the changing cultural contexts in which congregations minister today. One of my points was that current ministers are often compared...
Where Was God as Typhoon Slammed Philippines?
As I write, images of the destruction in the Philippines are streaming around the world. They are incomprehensibly tragic and graphic – bodies thrown up into trees, dwellings washed away, infrastructures devastated. It...
Advent Liturgies Offer Time-Tested Opportunities for Reflection
Advent commences the new year in the liturgical worship tradition, not Jan. 1. Advent, which is Latin for "coming" or "arrival," is the four-week period leading up to Christmas. It begins in late November or early...
Baptist Leader Appeals for Church Unity
The unity of the church, wherever and whenever it exists, should be celebrated, said Neville Callam, Baptist World Alliance (BWA) general secretary. Callam, who was speaking during the 10th assembly of the World...
Whose party was it?
I've observed that birthday parties are often more about the person throwing the party than the one being honored. Children's birthday parties, for example, can become de facto competitions between parents who want to...
The Seductive Momentum of Technology
The continuing disclosures, thanks to Edward Snowden, of the global extent of American spying programs are faintly humorous. One would love to know, for instance, what possible benefits American governments have gained...
The Sacred Act of Encouraging Children
Several weeks ago, the accompanist at the church I pastor preached on using our gifts to join creation's praise to God. He told a story of how his grandfather hummed hymns around the house and farm and how that had an...
How Blue Whales Taught Children about Compassion
"A blue whale's heart is as big as a Volkswagen Beetle," I told a group of wide-eyed, open-mouthed second-graders at my school. "It is so big, you could walk around inside of it." I was bringing S.O.L.E. to my...
Flushed with errors
By John Pierce To err is human. To err in a headline is to end up on a bathroom wall in the Newseum. Strategically located on Pennsylvania Ave., between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, the Newseum is a...
In living color …
It happens every year, about this time. The bright green leaves hit every shade on the spectrum involving yellow and red, and it seems the sunsets have a little extra punch -- or maybe it's just that, with the time...
What Matters
A sermon by Howard Batson, First Baptist Church, Amarillo, Tx. Philippians 4:1-9 November 3, 2013 Our stress levels are off the chart, aren’t they? The death of someone in our family. The pain of divorce. A court...
Living the Future in the Present by Forgetting the Past
A sermon by Howard Batson, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Amarillo, Tx. Philippians 3:1-21 October 27, 2013 Who is the most famous person in your heritage, your lineage, your ancestry? That question was posed at a...
Ahab: Weakling
A sermon by Randy Hyde, Pastor, Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ar. November 3, 2013 – THE KINGS – Ahab: “Weakling” 1 Kings 21:20-29; Colossians 3:1-10 Have you ever had guests in your home that couldn’t...
Peculiar Treasures
A sermon by Keith Herron, Pastor, Holmeswood Baptist Church, Kansas City, Mo. A Meditation on All Saints Day Revelation 7:9-12; 21:-1-4 November 3, 2013 Happy All Saints Day! We seem to know a lot about Halloween but...
On the Road with Jesus: Zacchaeus
A sermon by Jim Somerville, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va. November 3, 2013 All Saints’ Sunday Luke 19:1-10 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief...
Public Prayers Have No Place in Political Settings
When sessions of a legislature or court, at whatever level of government, open with prayer, what is really going on? To be clear, I'm a Baptist Christian and, therefore, oppose all public prayer in political settings...
Christians More Than Twice As Likely to Adopt a Child
A recent Barna Group survey found that 5 percent of practicing U.S. Christians – compared to 2 percent of all U.S. adults – have adopted children. When asked if they had seriously considered adopting, 38 percent of...
How Will You Solve Your Church’s Problem? Get SMART
As a judicatory leader, I spend a lot of time listening to pastors and church lay leaders talk about the numerous challenges of doing ministry in the 21st century. They talk about how difficult it is to attract new...
Why We Still Need Some Monocultural Churches
Multicultural churches are all the rage these days. Conferences are packed with pastors learning how to start a multicultural church or how to turn the churches they pastor into one. That long-overdue trend is welcomed...