Lead on, Oklahoma City?

73 years ago yesterday, July 16, 1935, the first parking meters anywhere went to work in OKC.
Perhaps one wouldn’t expect such a novel concept and excellent revenue stream to be born in Oklahoma City.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting piece for the New Yorker about big ideas and change. Apparently big, revolutionary ideas are not particualrly [...]

Worldview - Biblical or Not?

Adam Hamilton posted a couple weeks ago about a “Biblical Worldview.”  He cites Dave Kinnaman’s work in unChristian, which discusses the Barna Group’s research finding which “showed only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making.”
Barna defines a “Biblical Worldview” in this way:
For the purposes of the research, a biblical [...]

Unworthy?

“You are unworthy. I am unworthy. We are all unworthy.”
So spoke a “worship leader” at a worship service I attended recently.
I understand what (I think) he was trying to say. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, how beneficial it is to stand before a crowd of youth and tell them in an [...]

To Ministry

I am in Abilene, Texas through Friday for JYMO (Jurisdictional Youth Ministry Organization). McMurry University is our gracious host.
During this week, I’ll be leading a workshop on “Exploring the Call.” The purpose of this workshop is to help youth understand and interpret the calling God has placed and is placing on their lives. [...]

Rollins quote

I’d like to share a thought from Peter Rollins’ The Fidelity of Betrayal:
The Christian “system” can thus never take power for, by definition, it is always that which stands against power, seeking to identify with the powerless and voiceless. (p.169-70)

Old Thought, New Expression

One of those things I first thought at least a decade ago finds expression in the printed word:
The idea of God as  a being who is unchanging, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and thus always right is more of a philosophical rendering than a biblical one. In metaphysical theology God is thought to be the perfect [...]

Truth

Jack Nicholson was probably right. Tom Cruise couldn’t handle the truth.
Can you? Can I? Can we?
Claims about truth get thrown around like scud missiles.
Some in the church lament the loss of the day when we believed there was absolute truth (or should I say “Absolute Truth” and that we (the church) had it.
Some [...]

Heyduck Amendment

At Annual Conference this past week, we took some time on Tuesday afternoon, and again on Wednesday morning, to discuss resolutions on various social issues.
When the one titled “Resolution Regarding Global Climate Change” (page 124 at this link), I offered an amendment.  Line 16 read “1. Join in covenant with people of faith to work [...]

Even when Wright is Wrong

Barack Obama has removed his membership from Trinity United Church of Christ, where he had been a member for 20 years.  The primary reason, of course, is to separate himself from the caustic remarks of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the long-time pastor at Trinity.
Here’s what I wonder about all this: who are Hillary Clinton’s and John [...]

Presumed… Christian?

Over at The Journal of Student Ministries, Dave Decker has an interesting article that starts this way:
As I talk with my buddy on the phone, getting the skinny on the retreat he’s having me speak at, he drops the ol’ “um…and like…I know you’ll do this anyway, but we like really want a clear presentation [...]