Remembering and Commemorating the Augsburg Confession
By Caleb Keith
06/25/26
14mins

Remembering and Commemorating the Augsburg Confession

The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.
The Sacrament of Baptism: Through the Wardrobe and the Water
Sam P. Schuldheisz
Sam P. Schuldheisz
06/24/26

The Sacrament of Baptism: Through the Wardrobe and the Water

When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
Grace and the Illusion of Control
Ryan Couch
Ryan Couch
06/22/26

Grace and the Illusion of Control

The life we are trying to manage, improve, and secure is not something to be mastered. It is something to be surrendered. And this is where everything changes. Because in Christ, the approval we are seeking has already been spoken.

All Articles

Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/10/13

Drinking with the Dead: Country Music and the Communion of Saints

The details vary, of course, but we too struggle to repair the heart broken by the tragic death of someone we love. We're dazed, angry, speechless.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/09/13

The Uncivilized Baptist: Why John Beckons Us to the Wilderness

Why does John make you uncomfortable? You know. It’s not just the clothing; it’s not only the hair; it’s not even really the diet. John the Baptist is uncivilized—that’s the problem.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
11/26/13

God Doesn't Celebrate Thanksgiving: A Turkey Day Reflection

Eat, yes, but season your turkey with the ashes of repentance as it preaches just how little your faith is, just how little you trust God, just how little you believe the Father is good to you.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
11/22/13

Norman Rockwell's Nightmare: The Screwed Up Biblical Family

There is no whitewashing of evil within the biblical family. The sheer fact that it is recorded, that of all the events in these people’s lives, these were chosen to be chiseled into the stone of the church’s remembrance, tells us something.
Jessica Thompson
Jessica Thompson
11/20/13

Friends

Have you ever experienced the awkwardness of meeting someone you really enjoy and thinking that it was the start of beautiful friendship, only to find out that they didn’t feel the same way?
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/30/13

Burying the Hatchet: Why Forgiving Others Is So Hard Yet So Liberating

I believe, however, that lurking behind every reason we don't forgive is one fundamental impulse: the desire, real or perceived, to control the offender.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/25/13

Dying to Pray

The reason is much simpler than that: to learn to pray, you must first die. The language of prayer is taught in the school of death.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/22/13

Waking up with Leah: Learning to Love a Disappointing Church

Like the patriarch, Jacob, who after his wedding night, awoke to the wrong wife in his bed, I too one day opened my eyes to find that the Rachel with whom I had fallen in love, for whom I'd labored long years, was not the one beside me as the sun rose.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/16/13

The Three Friends Who Sought to Kill Death: A Cautionary Tale for Preachers

What is most remarkable about this tale is not how clever it is, but that the original storyteller was just as greedy as the three fictional young men were.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/03/13

Bloodshed at the Altar: The Genesis of Worship Wars

Why would God reject from Cain what he later accepted from and mandated of his people? So as far as the material itself, neither Cain’s nor Abel’s offering was superior.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
09/18/13

The Unjust Steward and the Just Savior: A Sermon on Luke 16

Yes, He knows all—not only the sins you remember and are ashamed of, but also those you have forgotten and even those you never knew you committed.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
09/05/13

The Truth About Cemeteries

For out of the mouths of these opposition forces, gathered on enemy turf, comes the defiant declaration of death’s undoing: “Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!” An audacious act it is, to march smack dab into the middle of a place that screams, “Dead!” and to sing, “Alive!”
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