Author: S&P

“I will make them strong in the LORD, and they shall walk in his name,” declares the LORD. (Zechariah 10:12) Another year, another church budget kicks in. For many churches the creation of a budget is mostly a formality: What did we receive in offerings last year? What can we expect this year? How do we plan to spend it? It has always been a pet peeve with me that most churches run on a calendar y...

David Burchett Author and Speaker Amy Grant recorded “My Grown-up Christmas List” for her “Home For Christmas” album. The lyrics imagine an adult going back to Santa with a different perspective on what matters most in life. Instead of material things the writer now asks for good things for others. I love the sentiment of the song. No more lives torn apart That wars would n...

The star of Bethlehem fascinated Johannes Kepler 400 years ago so much so that the great pioneer of modern astronomy published a treatise on the subject. Astronomers have tried to explain the phenomenon that attracted the Magi to the birth of Jesus ever since. Christianity Today recently featured a new theory about it proposed by Michael Molnar, a former Rutgers University astronomer. He postulate...

I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a good friend of mine. She told me about meeting a mutual acquaintance of ours who has a rather large following online. This guy is a professed follower of Christ, but his online engagement is, shall we say, very caustic, negative, and sometimes vulgar. What struck me is what my friend said about this guy we both know: “He is such a really nice guy in pers...

Every December, hundreds of people flood concert halls and performing arts centers to attend live productions of Handel’s Messiah, one of the most loved and enduring works of classical music from the eighteenth century. Its stirring music, written by the Lutheran composer George Frideric Handel, was composed in just 24 days, from August 22 to September 14, 1741. Although this provokes amazement in...

It’s that time of year again.  Decorative signs, advertisements, and commercials encourage us with the familiar messages: “Just Believe” “Have Faith” “A Season of Hope” At first glance these tidings may warm our hearts as we go about our way, humming Christmas music as we shop. Yet, as I stop to reflect upon these phrases, I wonder, What exactly do they mean? Each of these statements is missi...

Does gentleness impress you? If it doesn’t, it should. Like its cousin humility, gentleness is easily overlooked. It doesn’t draw attention to itself, because it’s too busy paying loving attention to another. What exactly is gentleness? It’s not timidity or shyness. It’s certainly not weakness. Consider the mighty gentleness of God himself: Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules ...

There are a lot of reasons to be cranky on Christmas. It can be one of the busiest times of the year, with the pressure to get the perfect gift for your loved ones, the endless travel to church and school events, and the seeming de-Christianization of Christmas by the prevailing culture. And yet none of these things should be allowed to steal our joy, especially for those of us who follow Jesus. I...

Alex Crain Crosswalk.com Contributor Should Christians get upset about seeing Christmas abbreviated as “Xmas?” How did that tradition even get started? Is it disrespectful? The answer to that last question is “not necessarily.” While some Christians seem unduly judgmental of others who abbreviate Christmas as “Xmas,” the practice of using an “X” to abbreviate “Christ” began hundreds of years ago. ...

Michelle Boorstein has a must-read piece in The Washington Post about the celibate gay Christian movement. It features Albert Mohler, Wesley Hill, and some others from the evangelical movement. The article begins with a discussion about Eve Tushnet, a celibate Roman Catholic lesbian. Today, Tushnet is a leader in a small but growing movement of celibate gay Christians who find it ea...

I recently saw Ridley Scott’s biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings at the theater. Evangelicals typically have one of two responses to movies like this. There are those who are upset at the deviations from the biblical text and there are those who are upset that people are upset about the movie. I’m typically somewhere in between. For instance, I watched the much anticipated Noah movie earlier th...

Peter Chin recently published a thought-provoking piece over at Christianity Today titled, “No Such Thing as Convenient Christianity.” His post is winsome and well-written, humorous and humble, confessional and convicting. It’s the kind of writing you’d expect from the author of Christianity Today’s most-widely read article of 2013. Yet in spite of Chin’s obvious passion and timely prophetic warni...