Anyone who reads this blog knows that I have little patience for attempting to run churches by business principles. That’s been weighed in the scale and found wanting every time it’s been attempted. Last evening, as I was prepping for an interview I was to conduct with a supply chain exp...

When I began to write this post, I looked for a dozen passages in the Scriptures that Christians in the West largely ignored in practice, despite mentally assenting to the truths contained therein. But what scared me as I delved into this was that far too many passages of the Scriptures are simply i...

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” —Mark 10:27 Read that verse again. Now I want to ask a question: Is it true? If any of us had to think even a split second about the answer, then something’s wrong....

We watched the penultimate teaching from The Truth Project this evening at church. It dealt with labor. I found it a good teaching, showing that work can be a joy because God Himself took joy in His work. Best of all, the teaching touched on the need for Christians to support the arts and those skil...

I’ve been a Christian for 32 years. I’ve worked for or been a part of many churches. A good chunk of my degree work focused on analyzing how churches operate. I think I have some qualifications to express my opinion here. If anyone were to ask me what the one essential ingredient was for...

The local community newspaper listed eight foreclosures in the last week, all residences. That’s just in one week. I had a hard time reading that and not getting misty-eyed. Eight families, no home. At that rate, we’ll have 416 foreclosures in 2009 in my locality. Frankly, given the tren...

The wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts. —Ecclesiastes 1:18 Winter holds sway here in southwestern Ohio, defined by cheek-stinging cold and relentless gray skies that suck all the color out of creation’s palette. January and February lurk. This time...

In the lexicon of the English language, failure may no longer be an option. Instead, we English-speakers bring you fail. Not as to fail, but simply fail. (If you aren’t tracking with this, Slate has a fine article explaining this latest twist in the mother tongue.) Of course, being the the lov...

On Friday, I attended a Bible study led by a friend who comments here from time to time. This friend knows the Scriptures because he dedicates himself not just to reading but to comprehending all their rich meaning. The text covered Genesis 15. This section caught my attention: And [the LORD] brough...

Knowledgeable Web denizens know Google’s motto: Do no evil. Cute, right? Well, that motto was put to the test when Google opened in China and conformed to the Chinese Communist government’s wish to censor search result. But that’s China. You expect that out of China. Recently, a si...