Tag: faith

  • Bending the rules

    Bending the rules

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    The passage for the sermon this past Sunday came from several scenes in Acts 16. As I was reading along, my thoughts began to wander about a detail that wasn’t addressed in the sermon, but stirred many thoughts in me as I considered how faith connects with cultures. In the first few verses of Acts…

  • preface / faith worth passing on

    preface / faith worth passing on

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    In the past year (2024) I’ve slowly been writing some reflection on life and faith but I’ve kept it in a side document. Now that it’s the end of the year, I’m realizing that this endeavor will take longer to write than I thought so I’m gonna slowly release what I have so far as…

  • Unattached Deconstruction

    Unattached Deconstruction

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    When I was a pastor of a congregation I used to worry about those who were deconstructing their faith apart from a community. I was concerned because there’s just so much information out there that just isn’t well-vetted. A 30-second google search or a few minutes watching a short from your favorite tiktok theologian does…

  • Held in high esteem

    Held in high esteem

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    I was reading through Acts 5 today (M’Cheyne) and honed in on the latter half of the chapter where the apostles were going around doing “many signs and wonders,” thrown in jail by the religious leaders, freed by a messenger, and teaching again in the temple. Throughout this narrative, I noted that the people “held…

  • Leaving a church as a kind of immigration

    Leaving a church as a kind of immigration

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    I was chatting with a friend recently who likened the idea of leaving a church as a kind of “immigration.” This idea intrigued me. Because one of the first questions I hear people ask when anyone leaves a church, “Are they still Christian?” and similar questions that I believe are very shame inducing. I don’t…

  • Gender Roles Short Circuit the Path to Self Knowledge

    Gender Roles Short Circuit the Path to Self Knowledge

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    I had mentioned in a previous post how I had read and discussed Aimee Byrd’s Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood with the pastoral staff at my church. One of our early questions/critiques was that Byrd never defines what it means to be a man or a woman. Our initial discussion surmised that she did…