A Once And For All Faith?

Within my tribe (Churches of Christ) and within other groups as well, there is a danger in reading Jude verse 3 with an air of finality: "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith …

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My Babies

by Julie Walker I don't know how this happened. I feel like yesterday we had small children running around this house and today we have a house full of teenagers. Every single one of our children is a TEENAGER!! What has actually happened! This cannot be God's plan. All those runny nose, messy eating, midnight …

What Being a Leaf Fan Has Taught Me About Idol Worship

Seems like everyone's a Leaf hater these days, and I mean HATE. It's like everybody's gotta tell me that the Leafs haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1967. (Thanks, I'll write that down somewhere) or tell me that the Leafs suck (no kidding). I know you're all having some fun, but some folks need to …

My Wife is a Minister of the Word

My wife is a minister of the Word.  What I mean by that is that she is a proclaimer of the Gospel.  She works part-time as a labour and delivery nurse at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital, but it is more than a job for her, it is a vocation. A vocation is a calling. It …

A Funeral Sermon

In chapter fifteen, the Apostle Paul is wrapping up his first letter to the Corinthian church by answering a few practical questions. The Corinthian church had been confused about many things, not the least of which is Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. For starters, there were some in the church there who didn't …

Two Kinds of Racism

What does a Canadian white male do with what is happening in Ferguson, MO? The violence and the bitter distrust is heart breaking and I don't know what I can do about it. I would like to think that I could hold this at arms length and shake my head condescendingly since this kind of …

Time Travel and the Kingdom of God

Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert! If you're not into temporal mechanics or Eschatology you will likely find this boring but I just had to get this off my chest. Some of these blog posts I do just for me and, judging by the page counts, you already seem to know that. We usually think of time …

Attending a Church With 50 Members is Good For You (You Just Don't Realize It)

If you talk to church leaders – it won't matter what tribe you ask – they will likely tell you that attendance is down in their local congregation. Very few churches these days report numerical growth and many are in steady decline. That's bad news right? The problem with this issue is that there is …

You Don't Actually Learn From Experience

Lots of people say that the best way to learn is from experience but the truth is, strictly speaking, nobody actually learns from experience.  If you want proof of that, consider what a group like Alcoholics Anonymous would say about real learning.  Learning is observed through a change in behaviour. A person dealing with alcoholism, …

A Distracted Mind

This week I've been learning about Spiritual Reflection at a one week intensive course at Lipscomb University. We talked about a study done by two Harvard researchers who wanted to track the connection between where your attention was focused, and how happy you were. So they developed an iPhone app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at …