Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
What Dogs Can Teach Us About Survival of the Friendliest
Theological insight and ethical guidance can come from many places, but I didn't expect it from a book titled "The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think" by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. Early chapters...
5 Unhealthy Expectations Small Churches Have for Pastors
In my role as a resource minister with the American Baptist Churches – USA of Indiana and Kentucky, one of my responsibilities is to assist our churches when they seek new pastoral leadership. A major challenge when...
Retirement-Aged Christians Are Today’s Drum Majors for Justice
Retirement-aged Christians are at the leading edge of addressing a host of social justice and mercy ministry initiatives. To play off an idea from Peter's Jerusalem sermon in Acts, young adults might have visions –...
Giving and receiving
By John Pierce True generosity is not based on what one gets in return. Yet while we don’t (or shouldn’t) give in order to receive – it often works that way. It did for veteran Atlanta Braves pitcher...
No Matter Your Circumstances, Keep Living God’s Word
We Baptists love our sermons. In our churches, the pulpit takes center stage. We spend lots of money paying good preachers and, for many churches, the sermons keep getting longer. The best sermons embody God's Word....
5 Ways Your Church Can Respond to Urban Youth
It seems like the list of groups for the church to consider supporting in the 21st century continues to grow. We are regularly reminded that we have a responsibility to care for widows and orphans, for the earth and...
How One British Mission Agency Offsets Climate Change
"If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree." Martin Luther is supposed to have said that, which is probably why it gets rolled out so often by evangelical climate campaigners. You can't argue with...
The good kind of pride …
Getting one's first car is one of those thresholds of emerging adulthood that most young men and women experience, most often in a good way. I didn't have wheels of my own until I was a sophomore in college, 60 miles...
Will Churches Speak Out Against Unequal Medical Coverage?
One of my favorite poems is Mary Oliver's "The Journey," which begins: One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice. The poem concludes by noting...
Good Vibrations: Music Therapy Reaches Ugandan Students
You wouldn't automatically pair music therapy with hearing impairments, but, in Uganda, BMS World Mission worker Bethan Shrubsole is doing just that. "We use the instruments they can feel – they feel vibrations – and...
Righteousness – Far More Than Personal Piety
"Righteousness." What a confusing and misunderstood word. We use it and use it over and over again without much critical thought as to what it means. Thanks to our traditional focus on personal piety, this word has...
At least we know …
The North Carolina legislature, newly and completely dominated by agenda-wielding Republicans intent on solidifying their position and steam-rolling opposition, has wrapped up its 2013 session, successfully turning the...
Seeking God’s Will at Your Church? Get a Shredder
It was a very impressive group of church leaders. Clergy and laity alike, they were successful and savvy men and women who had been patiently listening to me make repeated invitations to engage in a spiritual...
As Climate Changes, We Must Seek Ecological Justice
Recently, I awoke to flashes of lightning, deep rolling thunder and rain hitting my window. As I lay in bed contemplating whether to check the weather on television, I thought this is nothing but a mild summer...
Don’t Let One Royal Baby Overshadow Another
There's been a lot of fuss over this royal baby this week, hasn't there? When would the duchess give birth? What gender would the child be? When would they leave the hospital? How would the new family get home? And,...
Jesus – The Fullness of God
A sermon by David Hughes, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, N.C. July 21, 2013 Colossians 1:15-28 While growing up in Kentucky I remember the mixture of pride and embarrassment I felt in the 1960s when that...
Full of God’s Wisdom and Power
A sermon by David Hughes, First Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, N.C. July 14, 2013 Colossians 1:1-14 (Holding up a glass of water) And now for the proverbial question—is this glass of water half-full or half-empty?...
On the Road with Jesus: Mary and Martha
On the Road with Jesus: Mary and Martha Richmond’s First Baptist Church, July 21, 2013 The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Luke 10:38-42 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman...
Life in the Double Bind
A sermon by Keith Herron, Pastor, Holmeswood Baptist Church, Kansas City, Mo. July 21, 2013 Luke 10:38-42 The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Amos 8:1-12, Colossians 1:15-28, Psalm 52 This is a sibling story, a specialty...
3 Ways to Model Radical Love for Your Enemies
There is no doubt that Jesus commanded his followers to love their enemies. There is no room for negotiation with Jesus on this point. Indeed, while we attempt to evade Jesus' clear teaching by placing limitations on...
Can’t Seem to Change? Try Reaching Your Boiling Point
I am told that when Walt Whitman read Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The Poet," he was highly influenced. When the young Whitman heard Emerson say that the United States needed a poet to capture, in a proper fashion, its...