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10 things to know about marriage and the church
My grandfather loves to tell the story of how he and my grandmother first got together. He thinks it’s a sweeter story than it really is. He relishes the telling and loves to watch Grandma squirm as he goes. He builds it up, giving the reader clues about how he needed to woo her and…
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What is the right kind of website for your church?
With millions of websites out there, and a huge number of those being church and ministry websites, it is hard to figure out exactly what to do about your church’s website. I have one rule about church websites: Your church website must reflect who you are today and where you think you are heading tomorrow.…
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Why priests must learn to code
I’m generally not one to encourage business models in church: we’re generally saturated with them already. Or, more to the point, we apply them indiscriminately, with the idea that churches in general need to function more efficiently and take on a more corporate strategy. My own denomination, The Episcopal Church, did this with gusto in…
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Our Pentecost
While we wait for Superman and our friends build bomb shelters a low thunder rumbles, proving our certainty justified. The forecast calls for rain: 100%. The cloud with the lightening bolt flying out comically warns us: an image so innocent and besides, we’ve been through storms. We know what to expect. We wait. The only…
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The Church’s leadership problem and how we can fix it
I love you, Church, but we’ve got a problem. Sometimes it seems like you are addicted to tyrants and despots. Like those Hebrews asking for a king. Or else you are addicted to ineffectual and passive leadership. The kind easily manipulated by the whims of the powerful or chided in parking lots. You make it…
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The Next Big Thing for Christianity
Prophets The prophets of the Old Testament were gifted at knowing what was about to happen. But not so gifted at predicting the future. The difference between the two is simple to parse. Given the environment and knowledge of the world, culture, and the divine dream, they did an astounding job of knowing what would…
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4 things all Christians want
Though we may seem obsessed with ways in which people of faith are different, there are several things which are common among all Christians. Here are a few things upon which we can all agree we want. 1. Peace I like to joke that the safest thing to want is world peace, since every beauty scholarship contestant knows…
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How To Get the Most Out Of Church
Of course I love church. That goes without saying. But I don’t always love the church. I don’t always love the way we do church or the way we incarnate the church. It sometimes gets to me and drains me. Some of that is me. But a lot of it is the way we approach church as church members…