By: Rev Jacob Bolton on March 13, 2019
The past year has been one focused on an intentional and personal “slowing down.” I was feeling very harried after a long church transition and needed to make some changes. I started last January to intentionally make my coffee every morning using only a French Press. No Keurig, no buying it at the bagel place…
By: Mike on March 13, 2019
Preston Sprinkle’s editorial work on Two Views on Homosexuality explores and challenges the Christian response to modern sexual ethics surrounding same-sex couples within the church. Sprinkle referees a two-on-two literary debate over the affirming versus non-affirming views on the topic of homosexuality. Sprinkle leverages the work of Loader, Defranza, Hill, and Holmes to advance a…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on March 12, 2019
Recently a screen popped up on my iphone telling me the amount of screen time I had used that week. Instantly, I went into denial mode, “No way! That has to be wrong.” Unfortunately, it was quite right and had tracked my unconscious habit of digital use. I have spent my entire adult life decluttering…
By: Jennifer Williamson on March 11, 2019
When I first met Lois, I assumed she a widow. Several of my colleagues had mentioned how she and her husband had run thriving music ministries in France for several years, but when we arrived on the field she was single. Close to retirement age, she had recently spent some time back in the States…
By: Shermika Harvey on March 10, 2019
Confucius once said that “life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”[1] Not sure if this statement is entirely true, but it does have truth to it. In today’s world, most lives are filled with a degree of complexity that challenges our straightforward approach to it. For instance, a single mother working…
By: Mary Mims on March 10, 2019
Churches were once the anchor of many communities. Today, things have changed and many churches are languishing and on the verge of dying. Often, older churches are close to dying and ignore many of the symptoms associated with their illness. Thom Rainer in his book, Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours…
By: Wallace Kamau on March 10, 2019
This was the conclusion of a long worded statement of a newscaster on a popular television station in response to a story trending in the media of the misdeeds of a well know preacher, who has been christened “The mighty prophet of God” by his followers. The newscaster was angry at the “man of God”…
By: John Muhanji on March 10, 2019
It is common sense that we do change in life from birth to adulthood. However, we hardly realize that we change as time goes by. In her book “Mindset: The new psychology of success” Carol Dweck wrote, Whether human qualities are things that can be cultivated or things that are curved in stone is an…
By: Dan Kreiss on March 9, 2019
Reading this was cathartic to me. Life has been incredibly tumultuous for the past 18 months or so centered around deep feelings of self-doubt, insecurity, self-hatred etc. that resulted in severe marital struggles. I moved out for the better part of 6 months early last year and even when I was home, I refused to…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on March 9, 2019
People are creative, imaginative survivors. Yet, human emotions can cause havoc in our lives. We all have individual personalities which affect our focus and the direction of our lives. Society also plays a powerful role with regards to our belief systems while biases expose us to a darker side of human nature. Often, these systems…
By: Rhonda Davis on March 8, 2019
“If most of our body is made of water, why don’t I just fall to pieces when I get in the bathtub?” “Why is it so hard for people to decide things? When we go out for recess, we just play the game that seems the most fun. We don’t spend too long deciding because…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 8, 2019
Digital Minimalism covers a different way of approaching technology. Newport defines it as a philosophy in which you “focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.” Digital Minimalism describes a process for how to get there.…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on March 8, 2019
When talking to leaders I often attempt to have them identify what fills and drains them. What energizes them to lead another day and what causes them to want to write a resignation letter? As I read Garvey Berger and Johnston’s, Simple Habits for Complex Times I was able to articulate one of my…
By: Jason Turbeville on March 8, 2019
With a title like Divine Sex, you know you are in for an interesting read. When my wife saw my stack of books for this semester I had this book on the top of the stack, unintentionally, and she was confused. She asked me if I was still in a leadership program, I assured her I…
By: Trisha Welstad on March 7, 2019
I have a confession to make. I watch the Bachelor. With much of life being lived very full and more serious than it probably needs to be, the Bachelor is a silly way to relax and analyze the social dynamics of unrealistic dating. The reality show known by us as “the best of the worst…
By: Karen Rouggly on March 7, 2019
Six months ago, the student affairs team I work with went through the beginning stages of a restructuring process. At the time, we understood the process to be about 2-3 weeks, start to finish. We were implementing a new technique called a “Design Sprint”, so named from Jake Knapp and his Google Ventures team. The…
By: Greg on March 7, 2019
Sex with robots and trading one’s boyfriend for a something mechanical1 in order to fulfill ones desires are both systemic issues of a greater self-fulfilling problem within this world. Finding happiness and purposes seems to be be closely tied with the personal need to meet ones own need above anyone else. This selfish and ultimately…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on March 7, 2019
Being a Marriage and Family Therapist, conversations on the topic of sex are almost a daily occurrence for me. So much so that I forget sometimes that this is not the norm for most people, and I find myself speaking about this topic in very frank and matter-of-fact ways to the shock of others. It…
By: Jay Forseth on March 7, 2019
In our previous readings, Charles Taylor notes in A Secular Age, “In almost all Western Societies during the 1970’s, the legal privatization of our sexual lives occurred through the legalization of abortion, divorce reform, authorization of pornographic films, and so on.” [1] I was only 7 years old when the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision…
By: Jenn Burnett on March 7, 2019
I’ve just arrived back from a regional church leaders’ meeting. During some small talk with a stranger, I acknowledged how complicated it is being the church in the present time. He responded that he was much more concerned for our children. While I certainly agree there is cause for concern, I inquired what in particular…
