church

March 7, 2019

Why Fewer People Belong to Church Today: New Research Findings

We don’t need “change for change’s sake” just to appease the culture, but maybe the bathwater for the baby does need to be checked.
August 31, 2018

Gen Z and Their View of the Church: a Love/Hate Relationship

We have been exploring in a series of blogs what our new youth culture, Gen Z (born 1999 to 2015) thinks about life, God, the world, gender identity, and truth.  Today we take a few moments to see what they think about the Church.  There are positive things that Gen Z’ers see in the Church, but there are also deeply disturbing issues within them about the Church that should sound the alarm for any church leader seeking to reach and to disciple them in the gospel. I’m grateful for the resources from the Barna Group (their book Barna Trends 2018) and Impact […]
January 19, 2017

“We Saw Clearly That The Lord Was With You”: How the Church Should Act in a Post-Christian Culture

Every Wednesday, I enjoy participating in a Bible study with a sizable group of passionate men who love to study the Scriptures and to talk about its application to daily life.  For the last few months, we have studied and discussed the Book of Genesis.  This week we found ourselves applying the truths of Genesis 26 to our lives. Mind you, Genesis 26 is not the “hottest” chapter in this narrative-rich book.  It doesn’t command attention like the Creation account, the marriage of Adam and Eve, the Fall, the Tower of Babel, and Abraham’s life and events.  But in the […]
December 20, 2016

How CHRISTmas addresses our Post-Christian Culture’s Darkness

You are seeing it in the news everywhere at this time of the year.  This year, it’s  terrorist brutality at a Berlin Christmas market, a diplomat assassinated in Turkey, and shootings in Zurich, Switzerland outside a mosque.  Don’t forget the 2009 Christmas “underwear bomber” as well as numerous showings of domestic pressure to cancel Nativity displays and any language that has “Christ” or something religious in it. Christmas continues to be under attack.  How does the gospel address this post-Christian darkness? We need to see that it’s not the “season” surrounding this holiday that offends people.  It’s the person embodying the […]
December 2, 2016

The Church’s Presence and Voice: What is Going On?

Something is happening in American culture today that makes the phrase “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” a more vivid metaphor than we’d like to admit…The more traditional models are breaking down. We find ourselves struggling to find adequate ways to understand and respond to a world that is not what we have known. The institutional church is going through a radical change in this country, and the entire system is under incredible stress. Regele and Schulz’s analysis above has borne fruit in our times. In many cities and towns throughout America, the church—Protestant and Catholic—continues to experience […]