The purpose of the Ministry Journal is to share stories of God's good work among us and to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ in order to cultivate unity of mind and heart in mission and purpose and to remind one another of our true belonging to the family of God.
However, that very truth puts professing Christians in a quite vulnerable place. It is all too easy to weave US history together with our Christian faith in such a way that almost any threat (real or perceived) to our personal liberty can feel like an attack on our faith! And any moral legislation we disagree with can generate rather significant confusion regarding whether we should view the issue in question more as a citizen of the US or as a citizen of heaven!
Read MoreYour experience may have been different, but my impressions of The Passion of the Christ when it first came out was that it was nearly a mandate for Christians to see. The argument went something like this: In our sanitized western minds, we have no idea what a crucifixion is like. It is easy, then, to gloss over the events of Christ’s passion and to miss the magnitude of what He did for us. Seeing this movie will help us overcome that.
Read More“We’ve been asked not to sing the word alleluia tonight,” she explained. In this church’s observance of Lent, they didn’t say alleluia until Easter morning. That evening, our music proclaimed the truth of the gospel without the alleluias and resurrection songs, in a way uniquely fitted to the season.
Read MoreSeasons of joy are wonderful times. They are pictures of the great celebration when all longings will be satisfied in the Lord's presence forever. But our seasons in the wilderness evoke this longing through a different means. In the desert, distractions are stripped away by our realization that they can't provide for our need. We can know that "man doesn't live on bread alone” (Matthew 4:4), but our faith in that truth is tested when there is no food.
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