I’ll never forget the moment when a dear church attender struggled to grasp that morality alone does not bring glory to God. She couldn’t seem to fathom that good works don’t grant some measure of godliness. In her defense, evangelical churches have often missed the heart of the Gospel by teaching that morality equals godliness and a right standing before God. In an attempt to simplify the Gospel and make it easier to understand, holiness has been reduced to little more than moralism and … [Read more...]

The state of our national discourse is, to put it mildly, discouraging and unhelpful, and the reaction to the recent shootings only amplified how bad it is. Once again, everyone took their place along partisan battle lines to pound the same old drums, but it’s past time we admit that there’s something deeper going on in America than too many guns, or too few guns, or violent video games, or the President’s rhetoric, or even the evil of white supremacy. That’s not to say there are no good … [Read more...]

Estate planning is an important step in being a good steward of that which the Lord has blessed you. An estate plan normally involves creating wills and trusts, naming beneficiaries for financial accounts, giving permission for financial and health concerns should you become incapacitated, and making plans to distribute estate assets to family and ministry after death. There is an additional estate planning asset to consider when making plans. Perhaps you have never thought about your … [Read more...]

I am a history nerd, especially when it comes to worship. When we realize that most denominational divides came mainly from worship, it is important that we look at what it all means. The old worship wars were intense…much more than what we have seen over the past thirty years. These were ideals that the people that would be known as Baptists lived and died for. These early worship divides were not over what you might think when you regard worship, namely music. Rather, they were over what … [Read more...]

We live in a fast-paced world. We only have 52 Sundays a year; we have time that requires urgency and there are things we believe that are with great urgency and priority. The latest data from Pew shows a decline in religious affiliation and belief in God among U.S. adults between 2007 and 2017. A growing portion of young, religiously unaffiliated individuals calling themselves “nones” are driving changes in Americans’ religious attitudes, reshaping the nation’s religious composition. And … [Read more...]