Did you know the United States incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world? (And we have had a 500% increase over the past 30 years!) Did you know the United States contains 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners? Did you know there are more black men age 20-34 […]
Pay-what-you-can Professional Graphic Design for Churches & Non-Profits
Zane Ogle has done my graphic design for many years. I normally don’t do “commercials” for people, but I want to do this blog post as a way of saying thank you to Zane for all the great design work he has done for me over the years. I know it will also be a […]
Love is not the Answer to America’s Race Problem
The sociological research book Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith shows how white evangelical Christians see the solution to America’s race problem coming at an individual level, not a systemic or legislative level (p.115, “Let’s Be Friends” chapter). The predominant thought is that if everyone became a Christian, the race problem would […]
An Agnostic and a Druid on Church in a Bar, Free Beer
We’ve been doing church in a bar, buying a free drink for first timers. Here’s an unsolicited blog comment I received this week following our 2nd time doing The Upper Room. Check out ChurchAtTheLoft.com if you’d like to come join us on a Tuesday night. This post was written by an agnostic who came to […]
Haters Gonna Hate: Flak from having beer at church
(disclaimer for clarity: “Haters gonna hate” is a tongue in cheek way of talking about people who give you criticism. It’s a somewhat popular figure of speech made much more popular by the recent Taylor Swift song “Shake it Off,” where Swift also uses it in what I think is a tongue and cheek fashion. […]
Pray for your Pastor
This reminded me of the recent blog post I did on The Struggles of Being a Pastor. This is another great reminder to pray for your pastor. I’m not posting this for self-pity or to complain, but to raise awareness as most all of these are true of me and likely of your pastor as […]