God Is in Control? Refining the Words of Comfort We Give
I suggest that we stop saying, “God is in control.” Now, before you get yourself into a tizzy and shout, “HERETIC!! BUUUURN HER!,” give me a chance to explain. It seems everywhere I turn, I hear Christians comforting themselves and others with the simple phrase, “God is in control.” They mean well—I know they do—but...
Julia Kay Duerler
Confronting My Inner Deist
If I hadn’t already sworn off using the word, I’d say that I was deconstructing my faith a bit lately. Don’t panic. I’m not experiencing anything like a crisis of faith. In some respects, it’s just the opposite. Lately I’ve been questioning some of the unconscious assumptions that inform my faith with the result that my...
Chad Ragsdale
Summary of Ephesians: Understanding the Basics of Ephesians in the Bible
Here’s a short summary of Ephesians: Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul to the church at Ephesus and the churches in the neighboring cities to help them see all that God had done for them in Christ and how that should shape their life. In the first half of the letter (chapters 1-3), Paul...
John Whittaker
10 Unromantic Bible Verses That Describe Real Love
Love can be celebrated in sappy ways. (That seems to be what Valentine’s Day is for.) Yes, the Bible celebrates romantic love and all that comes with it (have you ever read the Song of Songs?!). But the love described most often in the Bible isn’t sappy or sensual. It is real and dependable. This...
Daniel McCoy
Learning by Doing: Preparing People We Lead for Action
Several important things changed for my son during the summer between his 8th and 9th grade year of school. Not only was that the summer we moved from Iowa back to Missouri, but as Tucker was headed into high school, he grew several inches, got his braces taken off, and decided to make the switch...
Tim Casey
The Lies We Tell Ourselves about Ourselves
George Santos lied about some things in his past. Okay, about everything in his past. He lied about where he attended high school (Horace Mann) and college (Baruch) and graduate school (NYU). He claimed he starred on the Baruch volleyball team that beat Harvard and Yale. Baruch did beat Harvard in 2010, but Santos wasn’t...
Bob Turner
The Real Presence is the Holy Spirit
Provocative discussions with a friend about the Eucharist drew me to a careful re-reading of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, because it is John 6 which many believe provides a scriptural basis for the doctrine of transubstantiation. It’s the belief that communion involves partaking of the real presence of the body and blood...
Clarke D. Forsythe
RelationShift: Five Shifts for Disciple Makers to Live and Lead from Relationship
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO RELATIONSHIPS THAT FUEL DISCIPLE MAKING Many church leaders hear of the power of relational disciple making to transform churches, and they want in. The problem is they’re programmed to see everything as—well, a program. In the hurry…
Jim Putman
The Turkey-Syria Earthquake: 7 Ways to Pray
Could you take a moment and pray for the people of Turkey and Syria affected by the recent earthquake? Here are 7 ways to pray for them. Early Monday morning, February 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria. At the time of this writing, there are at least 11,600 dead from...
What Works in Disciple Making? 10 Answers from People I’ve Discipled
At core, I’m a disciple maker. I believe Jesus’ Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:18-20) is a command on my life to walk beside women as they learn to trust and follow Jesus. Taking my cue from Ephesians 4:12-14, I disciple women by helping them to effectively mature as disciples of...
Michelle Eagle
Ready for Real Relationship? A Review of Jim Putman’s ‘RelationShift’
*Editor’s Note: Jim Putman will lead an in-depth class at the 2023 Renew Gathering on April 26th on his new book, RelationShift: Five Shifts for Disciple Makers to Live and Lead from Relationship. It is easy for church leaders today to state that they believe in relational disciple making. In the ten years since Jim...
Bobby Harrington
What Are People Looking for in You?
I remember when I was a student pastor (we called them youth pastors in 2006) and I was taking my students to a district youth rally in a small rural town called Unionville in middle Tennessee. I was quite the hotshot in the denomination I was saved in and had a pretty large group, especially...
Corey Trimble
Theology of the Body: What the Bible Teaches About the Importance of Bodies
What is a theology of the body? It is easy for us to see our bodies as disconnected from our spirituality. Yet the Bible teaches us much about the purposefulness, value, and even sacredness of our bodies. Developing a biblical theology of our bodies provides crucial context for how we treat each other and how...
Jonathan Storment
Some Reflections on Foreign Accents
Isn’t it interesting that you don’t have an accent? Doesn’t it feel like you talk normal, while other people from other places are the ones who have accents? One of the unfortunate facts of a fallen world is that we can tend to judge and make assumptions of people by how different they sound from us. The word barbarian,...
Daniel McCoy
It’s About the Children: Reflections on the Why behind the Exodus
The Bible passage I’m reflecting on here is from the portion of the Torah that starts with the word “Bo” (“Come to Pharaoh”). The biblical narrative in this portion of the Torah is probably one of the more dramatic and more influential of the whole biblical narrative—including all the way to the book of Revelation....
Joseph Shulam
Spiritual Warfare: Getting Clear on Our Real Enemy
What is spiritual warfare? Spiritual warfare is what the apostle Paul calls “our struggle…against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm” (Eph. 6:12). When we say spiritual, Americans often merely mean emotional. When the Bible uses the term, however, it refers to the personal, real beings who are beyond physics but who interact...
David Young