Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Providing Adequate Medical Care to Nepal’s Poor
There are no experienced doctors in most rural Nepalese hospitals. Without the access to general practitioners, the rural poor can either scrape together what money they have for a private doctor in Kathmandu or die in...
On the Road with Jesus: The Dishonest Manager
A sermon by, Jim Somerville, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va. September 22, 2013 The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Luke 16:1-13 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager,...
Money Talks
A sermon by Robert Browning, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Frankfort, Ky. September 22, 2013 Luke 16:1-13 There is widespread consent this is the most intriguing parable Jesus told. It leaves almost everyone who...
Irregular Verbs and Dangling Participles
A sermon by Randy Hyde, Pastor, Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ar. September 22, 2013 Psalm 4:1-8; Luke 16:1-13 I’m hardly a movie or television critic. I’ll leave that job up to our Hillcrest neighbor...
The Streetwise Steward
A sermon by Michael Cheuk, Pastor, University Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Va., on September 22, 2013. Luke 16:1-13 Our scripture lesson this morning is one bizarre parable told by Jesus. It is about a rich man...
The Things We Can Do Together
A sermon by Keith Herron, Pastor, Holmeswood Baptist Church, Kansas City, Mo. Colossians 1:24-29 Stewardship Commitment Sunday September 22, 2013 On the day you were born, you were given a gift! No doubt you didn’t...
How to Astonish a Society That’s Seen It All
When was the last time you astonished someone with your courage? Or astonished anyone with anything, for that matter? When was the last time you let yourself be astonished by someone else? People these days can be...
Mum Christians Need to Take Action on Gun Violence
The recent carnage by a man with known psychological problems wielding an assault rifle has spurred further rhetoric in the gun control debate. Meanwhile, many, many more are being killed with guns daily in our streets...
Vocation and Vacation Separated by More than a Vowel
Separated by a single vowel, "vocation" and "vacation" have a complicated relationship. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocatio, which means a call. Originally, the concept of vocation bore religious freight. Men...
The Levellers Sought Equality, Religious Freedom
The 370th anniversary of a battle you may never have heard took place on Friday, Sept. 20, which offered me a good excuse to write about a group you may never have heard of. There is some value in knowing about the...
Lebanese Partnerships Provide Help to Syrian Refugees
Spiritual revival is taking place amid the Syrian crisis. With the escalating disputes in Syria, many are fleeing to neighboring countries to escape the crossfire. Media reports depict great suffering and desperation,...
British Churches Increasingly Tackle Food Poverty
Significant numbers of churches are now involved in the provision of a food bank, but can more be done to tackle the causes of food poverty? That's the challenge posed in a new report from the Church Urban Fund, a...
Presence
An overnight trip to the high country early this week offered multiple opportunities to be reminded of God's presence. From near Todd, NC, looking southwest toward Boone. The mountains themselves shout with it, of...
Real talk
By John Pierce Actors in commercials talk differently than those of us in real life. We would more likely say, “Man, I sure do itch!” rather than, “I’m tired of my moderate to severe...
3 Reasons Why Churches Should Reach Millennials
When I was a college student, I heard someone say, "The church is always one generation away from extinction." As I remember, this was intended to encourage us to be evangelistic in sharing our faith. The idea is that...
Your Choice: Engaged with Risk or Disengaged with Safety
Thomas Friedman begins his book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded," with a story about the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Before 9/11, the consulate was located "in the Palazzo Corpi, a grand and distinctive old building in...
The Dangers of Communicating Via Social Media
We are living in a hurried, fast-paced age. If you do not own or have access to a MacBook, iPhone, iPod, iPad or their non-Apple equivalents, you are almost lost. While these new forms of technology have afforded us...
See You at the Pole: Is It Really a Good Idea?
When I was a teenager, there was a day called See You at the Pole (SYATP). We were encouraged to show up at the flagpole before school started, join hands and pray together. I went to a large high school so this...
Why Should You Bother Ministering to Homeless?
I preached on the "parable of the lost sheep" from Luke 15 recently, which begins with the notice that "all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes were...
Jesus Calls Us to Broader Understanding of Family
Last year, one book was the talk of the summer: "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. Following the popular genre of female memoir-spirituality-adventure writing of Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat Pray Love," "Wild" tells the story of...
Cooling the hot buttons
Photo from telegraph.co.ukThe recent interview with Pope Francis, "the people's pope," was yet another sign that a fresh new breeze is stirring the dusty air of the Vatican. That makes the more stodgy types really...