Unjust things often happen to good people. Inconvenient things constantly happen to good people. Unpleasant things frequently happen to good people. Tragic things sometimes happen to good people. But nothing happens to God’s people that God doesn’t allow and bless. Continue reading “Bad things don’t happen to good people”

1. A strong sense of group identity and community
2. A belief that the group is somehow separate from the rest of society
3. A strong sense of group destiny and purpose
4. An unwavering adherence to the teachings of its founder, which may differ radically from the rest of society
5. A total commitment to the goals of the movement which overrides personal goals and comfort

Are these signs true of your church?

If not, why not?

Like a sword, the word of God is only powerful when it’s applied to a specific point, or along a specific line. Like a scalpel, its purpose is not to stimulate you generally, but to heal you precisely. It has to cut away something.

Small town weekly newspapers still print that old American slogan in their church news sections: “Attend the church of your choice.” Personally, I couldn’t trust myself to do that. Continue reading “Attend the church of God’s choice.”

Perhaps the most significant difference between our generation of church members and previous generations of Christians is that, if we even notice our low level of Christian experience, we aren’t desperate to escape from it. Continue reading “There must be more than this.”

Most American Christian activity is compensation for not actually having an intimate relationship with God. When you can’t hear his voice at every moment, you have to develop a theology that doesn’t require it. When you don’t have the power to do God’s will, even if you happened to know what it was, you have to make some adjustments.

Sometimes, personal evangelism reminds me of dubious multi-level marketing schemes, where the appeal is the desire for wealth without effort, not appreciation and enjoyment of a quality product. “Well no, it hasn’t worked for me yet, but if you can recruit people to sell it for you, think of where you’ll be someday!”

If you need to be coaxed into sharing your faith in Christ, maybe your faith isn’t worth sharing. Get a living faith and then you can’t help but share it.

Jesus thought of God as “Abba”; literally, “Daddy.” When the early Christians called God “Daddy,” it was an intimacy born out of gratitude and honor.

The infinite, awesome God is honored when his children love him without fear. But we want to love him without awe.

We don’t come to him as a small dependent child would. We come to him jauntily, careless of our need, careless of what he would give us if we would come to him as our Daddy.

When Isaiah saw God high and lifted up, did he pray casually, as we do? Could you pray casually, if you saw God?

What do you see?

I’m told that we learn to talk by imitating our mothers, and that disturbs me. I don’t think I sound much like my mother, nor do I want to. I thought I sounded like air naturally passing through my larynx and past my tongue and lips. Maybe that isn’t so.
Continue reading “Imitation Me”

For years, I was involved with Christian theater. In fact, three of my acquaintances became Christians through evangelistic drama and films. Later, the first became a Marxist. The second became a Rotarian. The third murdered his wife.