When I first heard about One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church by Gina Dalfonzo, I thought it would be a book with a "how-to" bent. I know that in many churches, the response to the sexual revolution over the last several decades has been to focus on the nuclear family to the neglect … Continue reading Seeing Singles as People (Review)
The Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, and Nearing the End
This is the nineteenth post in a series of reflections on my trip to Israel last summer (to read them all, click here). June 27 AM On our group's first morning in Jerusalem—the first day of the trip that did not dawn already blazing hot—our first stop was going to be the Temple Mount. We trooped … Continue reading The Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, and Nearing the End
Night in Jerusalem
This is the eighteenth post in a series of reflections on my trip to Israel last summer (to read them all, click here). June 26 PM In the afternoon of June 26 our tour bus left Caesarea, and Galilee, and took us to where we would spend our final three days. By that point in the … Continue reading Night in Jerusalem
Caesarea and Kingdom Building
It's hard to believe it's now been almost a year since the pilgrimage to Israel I made with a group from my church last summer. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to try to write reflections on every stop we made, but I'm actually pretty close to finishing now. This is the seventeenth post (to read them … Continue reading Caesarea and Kingdom Building
Character Is King (Review)
Education in general, and education in leadership in particular, has increasingly become focused on the acquisition of skills. Since we as a society cannot agree on what is good or true or beautiful, when we want to teach something the only definition of success we can agree on is that we should become, as the title of … Continue reading Character Is King (Review)
Justice, Mercy, and Brokenness (Review)
Toward the beginning of his memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, lawyer Bryan Stevenson writes, "I've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, … Continue reading Justice, Mercy, and Brokenness (Review)
All Religion Isn’t Bad, but There Is Such a Thing as Bad Religion (Review)
You don't often hear people called heretics anymore. In 1905, the British journalist G. K. Chesterton wrote a book called Heretics, in which he critiqued the teachings of several of his contemporaries, including H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. Even then, though, writing a book calling out heresies was kind of cheeky. In the age … Continue reading All Religion Isn’t Bad, but There Is Such a Thing as Bad Religion (Review)
Unscripted by Ernie Johnson (Review)
Probably like many people, I know Ernie Johnson Jr. from his work as a broadcaster at Turner Sports, particularly hosting Inside the NBA on TNT. I knew next to nothing about him besides that, but when I found out he was coming out with a biography from a well-known Christian publisher (Baker Books) and this biography was … Continue reading Unscripted by Ernie Johnson (Review)
Megiddo and to’ebah
This is the sixteenth post in a series of reflections on my trip to Israel last summer (to read them all, click here). June 26, AM Our next stop after the area outside Nazareth was Megiddo, a site on the north side of the Carmel ridge, on the southern edge of the Jezreel Valley. In ancient times … Continue reading Megiddo and to’ebah
As Kingfishers Catch Fire (Review)
Eugene Peterson has long been one of my heroes. As I was studying to be a pastor, I would sometimes become anxious, thinking that I would have to become an über-extroverted CEO to keep up with contemporary expectations for what a pastor should be. I would be filled with dread and second-guessing until I went back … Continue reading As Kingfishers Catch Fire (Review)
Elliot Ritzema 