Church Leadership: Shepherds, Sheep, and the Good Shepherd
I gave the sermon (or "teaching," as we sometimes call it) at our church a couple Sundays ago. The sermon was part of a series on relationships, and I..
Church Chat [Ecclesiology]
Why Should You Care about Cities? (3/3)
Who you are depends largely on who you have been with. And most of what you know you have learned from other people. If these statements are true, the..
Why Should You Care about Cities? (2/3)
Where can you serve God most strategically? This is not always an easy question to answer. There are needs everywhere, and diligent laborers are in sh..
Articles of Church Membership
When you think about “church”, do you think about “a” church or “the” church? Or both? Which most often? And does ..
125 Years of Seven Ordinances — Rough Draft
When a baby is born at 10 months, we don’t usually call it premature. When a writer has been promising for that long to release an essay, howeve..
Prayers for Conservative Anabaptist Churches
Several discussions lately have reminded me of deep, ongoing needs within our conservative Anabaptist churches. (I’m sure some of these needs ar..
Tradition in the NT (2): Good Examples
[For the first post in this series, see: “Tradition in the NT (1): Bad Examples.”] “What you have done for my son and my family is b..
Tradition in the NT (1): Bad Examples
[For the sequel to this post, see “Tradition in the NT (2): Good Examples.”]“I don’t have much Scripture for this sermon.” The speaker was a visiting ..
Clarifications about Removing Church Traditions
My recent posts prompted a couple questions that I want to answer briefly here. Both are good questions, deserving much fuller responses than I will b..
Thinking Intentionally about Tradition and Change
Well, it’s no surprise: The topic of church standards and traditions gets conservative Anabaptists fired up like little else. My recent posts about Ge..
