Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
What Keeps Many of Us from Helping the Poor
Soon after arriving with our church's mission team at Turtle Shores, a Christian mission and retreat center in Belize, I had an interesting conversation with Sarah Bradbury, one of the resident missionaries who worked...
One arm, two weeks, three lessons
By John Pierce Two weeks ago my left wrist was surgically repaired with a plate and four screws. Running and slipping on a wet, grassy hill was not the wisest decision of my life. However, having my first broken bone...
4 Ways to Continue to Follow Christ Faithfully
The challenge for Christians is to continue to follow Christ long after our initial profession of faith in him. Doing so must be hard because thousands of books have been written about how to faithfully follow Jesus as...
The Horror of Hiroshima Told Through Graphic Novel
Today is the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Six-year-old Keiji Nakazawa was on his way to school in Hiroshima when the bomb exploded at 8:15 on that hot August morning in 1945. Even though his...
Breaking News: Pastor Accepts Call to Smaller Church
"Breaking News: Pastor accepts call to a smaller church!" That's not a headline you see very often. Most pastors nearly always are called to a larger church than the one they are leaving. Recently, I had lunch with one...
Could it be real?
In a surprising turn of events, Israeli officials who tried for 10 years to have a stone Hebrew inscription declared a forgery have now filed suit to keep it because it is an "antiquity." The artifact, known as the...
4 Calls Jesus Made to Radical Living
Soon after announcing that the kingdom of God is near in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus called his disciples. While Jesus was certainly calling individuals to follow him, he was always calling them into a community in which...
Measuring Church Growth: Statistics or Spiritual Depth?
When my family lived in Clemson, S.C., our next-door neighbor was an 85-year-old woman who was the epitome of southern gentility. Mrs. Turner had lived in Clemson for most of her life and in the South all of her life....
“Thanks, Chaplain, For Being Here. We Need You.”
"Chaplain, I just wanted to drop in and say thank you for the worship Sunday night," said one the women at the correctional center where I serve as chaplain. "Well, thank you, Hannah. Tell me, which part of it was...
Greed trumps history
Political crises and massive uprisings in Syria and Egypt are not only taking a toll on human life, public resources, and economic well-being -- they're also contributing to an unconscionable desecration of history....
A More Fitting Metaphor for Pastors “ as Artisans
Various metaphors have been used to describe the role of God's chosen leaders. Some have lodged permanently in our collective consciousness while others have not passed the test of time. Perhaps the oldest metaphor...
Millennials: A Voice to Call the Church to Faithfulness
Rachel Held Evans recently posted a brief piece on CNN's belief blog about why millennials are leaving the church. If you haven't taken time to read her insights, I commend them to you. Essentially she argues that...
Building Bigger Barns While Ignoring the Hungry
I'm a farmer, and I'm astounded. Well, that claim about being a farmer is an exaggeration. Yes, I own the family farm. But someone else, thank goodness, farms it. But I'm still astounded. The U.S. House of...
Fulfilled in Christ
A sermon by David Hughes, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, N.C. July 28, 2013 Colossians 2:6-15 The story appears in many versions, but it usually goes something like this—a policeman sees a drunk man...
A Good Work
A sermon by, Howard Batson, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Amarillo, Tx. Proverbs 12:13-18 July 28, 2013 A woman went to see her psychiatrist, exhausted by her relationship with her cantankerous husband. “Do you have...
Lord, Teach Us to Pray
A sermon by Randy Hyde, Pastor, Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ar. July 28, 2013 Psalm 85:1-13; Luke 11:1-13 We don’t know the professions of all of Jesus’ disciples. The most notable, of course, were...
Food Fight
A sermon by Robert Browning, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Frankfort, Ky. July 21, 2013 Luke 10:38-42 We turn our attention this morning to a story which has more twists and turns than a mountain road. It is filled...
On the Road with Jesus: Praying Lessons
A sermon by Jim Somerville, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va., July 28, 2013 The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost Luke 11:1-13 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples...
Including Disabled Persons in the Life of the Church
How can churches enable disabled people to be more involved in the life and mission of the church? This was the central question raised at the Enabling Church conference at Westbury-on-Trym Baptist Church in Bristol in...
5 Ways to Plug in Church Members for Service
One of the most discouraging things that a pastor or staff minister can hear is this: "I just don't belong here. I can't find a place to plug in at this church." This may be the last conversation that the minister will...
Where’s the Line Between Caution and Dishonesty?
My wife and I began rewatching the television show "Lost" about plane-crash survivors stranded on an island over the summer. When a few survivors hike to higher ground to call for help using the plane's transceiver,...