Words of Wisdom from Pastors with Tenure (Part 1)
A 2011 Lifeway Research poll found that the average tenure for pastors in a local church is 3.6 years. Some have suggested that the number may be higher. Nevertheless, pastors who stay at a given church for ten, twenty, thirty, or more years are a rare occurrence. Yet the pastors that we tend to admire the most are those who have stayed at and labored in a single local church for an extended period of time. Furthermore, some...
Destroyer of the gods: A Review
Early Christians were strange people in the eyes of Roman citizens. That was due in large part to their distinctive practices. Larry Hurtado,[1] in his newest book Destroyer of the gods (Baylor University Press, 2016), presents a fascinating, two-fold argument. First, he contends that early Christian worship practices were markedly different from all other Roman religions, cults, and philosophical societies. Second, Hurtado argues...
A Brief Exploration of General Baptist Origins
by Jesse Owens Where did Baptists come from? Some have speculated they have always existed in some place or another since the time of John the Baptist. Others have contended that Baptists’ origins lay in the European Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century. Still others have maintained that the Baptists sprung from the English Puritan and Separatist movements in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Baptists have at...
Carl F. H. Henry on the Christian Stake in Legislation
How should the Church address social issues today? Writing in the 1960’s, Carl F. H. Henry provides us with a framework to think through this essential question. His words on why the Church should address rulers and the public on the theme of proper social principles remain applicable to this day: Even though the Church is not arbitrarily to impose a theology of society, forcing its ideals upon the world, it needs to do more than...
The Vine Project: A Review
Does church make you tired? By this I don’t mean do the sermons make you sleepy. But are the programs, events, and demands too many, and the laborers too few? From my experience, many pastors, deacons, and laymen feel this way. They’re overworked, underequipped, and a bit distressed by the seeming lack of success that their church is experiencing. The problem may be that twenty percent of the members are doing eighty percent of the...
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