Preparing for a Funeral
What should I say? How long should my sermon be? Will there be a visitation or viewing service? I remember feeling overwhelmed preparing for my first funeral a few years ago. Honestly, I still feel this way now. Funerals can be emotionally draining for the ministry leader. You may feel an unintentional need to perform well or fix everyone’s grief all at once. The person delivering the sermon or eulogy receives a lot of pressure....
A Devotion on Gratitude from Psalm 100
The last couple of years have perhaps made it difficult for some of us to maintain a life of gratitude. After a global pandemic, a contentious election season, and many riots, being grateful may not come easy. However, even amid difficult times, Christians can remain genuinely grateful about much. Psalm 100 is a psalm of thanksgiving. It calls us to have genuine gratitude for the Lord and to praise Him. There are two calls to praise...
A Few First Steps in Hospitality
Last year—yes, Lockdown-2020—my husband and I read Rosaria Butterfield’s The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in our Post-Christian World. The timing could not have seemed worse! How were we supposed to host people in our homes and live out the beautifully bountiful form of generous hospitality that the Butterfields exemplify when many people in our community did not consider being closer than...
Technology and Culture in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
A year before the United States first landed a man on the moon, director Stanley Kubrick released one of the most celebrated space films in history—2001: A Space Odyssey. The film won a host of awards in different categories. The visual power of the film is arresting, and the soundtrack became a trope in American culture. Yet beyond all of the spectacle, critics regarded Kubrick’s masterpiece so highly because, like the best art, it...
The Sufficiency of Scripture and Christian Worship
Ask any conservative Protestant evangelical minister if they believe in the sufficiency of Scripture and they will almost certainly answer “yes.” Affirming the sufficiency of Scripture for conservative Protestant evangelicals is almost akin to affirming the inerrancy of the Bible. But I have noticed with friends and colleagues in recent years that we are seemingly talking past one another when we discuss the sufficiency of Scripture...
Book Review: Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy
Two seemingly distinct areas in theological studies have enjoyed renewed interest in recent years. A variety of authors have emphasized both the doctrine of creation and the method of theological retrieval. Each area is rich for theological discovery and construction. While some have recently sought to apply theological retrieval specifically to the doctrine of creation, fewer have looked to the early church fathers.[1] Thankfully,...
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