Is Faith Enough?
01/22/26
10mins

Is Faith Enough?

We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Why Christian Tradition? Why Confession
Donavon Riley
Donavon Riley
01/21/26

Why Christian Tradition? Why Confession

Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Christ Does Not
Russ Lackey
Russ Lackey |
Mark Mattes
Mark Mattes
01/20/26

When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Christ Does Not

American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

All Articles

RJ Grunewald
RJ Grunewald
02/02/15

Bloodied, Beaten, and Bruised

Jesus tells the story of a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who falls into the hands of robbers. The text reads, “They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.”
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/28/15

Police Dispatched at Midnight to Loud Party at Local Church

You see, officers, this son of our congregation was dead, and has come back to life again; he was lost, and has been found.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/22/15

When Your Children Stray from the Church

Scattered throughout all denominations are moms and dads whose greatest disappointment in life is that their children have seemingly abandoned the faith.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/20/15

Preachers with Soiled Resumes

Case in point: Jonah. Calling this man to be a prophet makes about as much as sense as hiring an executioner to be the CEO of a hospital.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/17/15

You’ll Never Hear the Opening Words of the Bible the Same Again

The task—the joyful task!—of the interpreter is to go around the house, trying various keys in various doors, until they are all opened. This is one way to picture our reading of the Bible.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/12/15

Hollywood, Nashville, and the Lord's Supper

That hunger to connect with one who is greater than we are will be satisfied only in the one who created that hunger within us in the first place.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/07/15

Honky-Tonk Baptism: Carrie Underwood’s “Something in the Water”

When the Holy Spirit finally gave me a fresh set of ears, I heard—really heard—what He’d been saying all along. Baptism really does save.
Jessica Thompson
Jessica Thompson
01/02/15

Feeling Restless and Finding My Resting Place

I woke up this morning feeling restless. It could be the 7,000 holiday calories I have eaten every day for the past two weeks or it could be that a new year has started and so follows the resolutions.
Dan van Voorhis
Dan van Voorhis
12/24/14

Death and Christmas

I know it’s a rite of pious holiday passage to complain about the commercialization of Christmas and to remind everyone to keep the “Christ” in Christmas. And don’t forget the secular “war on Christmas." Whatever.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/10/14

Heaven's Gaze in a Child's Eyes: An Eight-Month-Old Teaches Us How God Loves the Outcast

As God is prone to do, He sometimes shows us who He is through people whom we would never think of as teachers, much less imitators of God.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
11/24/14

Everything I Needed to Know About Vocation I Learned at the Lord's Supper

We usually understand vocation in a very narrow sense; it’s your job, your “calling.” Vocation, however, is not so much what you do for a living but what Christ does through you for the living. It’s a 24/7 calling, not a 9 to 5 occupation.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
11/16/14

Taking the Road More Traveled By: The Benefit of Tradition in the Church

Ultimately, however, I fell in love with traditions—and specifically, traditional worship—for a single, overarching reason: its components, to varying degrees, are all in the service of the Gospel.
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