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By Carolyn McCulley

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Preaching on my Feet

By Craig Brian Larson

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No More Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

By Kevin Miller

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Locally Grown Leadership

By Chad Hall

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Incremental Preaching

By Bryan Wilkerson

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How do we Assess Spiritual Growth?

A Leadership interview With Dallas Willard

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Higher Education–Now a Click Away

By Daryl Ellis

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The “We” We Want to Be

By John Ortberg

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Control Tweaks

By Darrin Patrick

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“Finding the right combination of structure and empowerment moved one young church toward maturity.”

By Kevin Miller

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“How do you respond to people who are sinning, who know they’re sinning, and who (given the addictive nature of their sin) most likely will sin again? Is there appropriate church discipline for repetitive sin?”

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“Our job is not to keep as many people as possible.  Our job is to make sure that we’re setting a biblical pattern.”

-Francis Chan

“A Family Affair: What would the church look like if it put we before me?”

by Joseph H. Hellerman

Christianity Today, May 2010, pp.42-46 [first two paragraphs are excerpted below; full article is available on-line for download at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=87899]

“Spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community. Persons who remain connected with their brothers and sisters in the local church almost invariably grow in self-understanding. And they mature in their ability to relate in healthy ways to God and to fellow human beings. This is especially the case for those courageous Christians who stick it out through the messy process of interpersonal conflict. Long-term relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay grow.

People who leave do not grow. We all know persons consumed with spiritual wanderlust. We never get to know them well because they cannot seem to stay put. They move from church to church, avoiding conflict or ever searching for a congregation that will better satisfy their felt needs. Like trees repeatedly transplanted from soil to soil, these spiritual nomads fail to put down roots, and they seldom experience lasting, fruitful growth in their Christian lives.”  [continue to read Dr. Hellerman's article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=87899]

Joseph H. Hellerman is professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He is the author of When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (B&H Academic).

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
-John Maynard Keynes, responding to an accusation of inconsistency

While I was in college many years ago, I could never get myself to say it. I didn’t have the
guts to come right out and tell my ministry partners and friends that I did not believe that
women should teach men in religious settings. Whether in a dorm Bible study or from the
pulpit, I thought that a woman shouldn’t have a leadership position over any man in the
fellowship. But a position like this wouldn’t be popular with the ladies, a not-so trivial thing
for a single college male. So I kept it to myself.

To read the entire paper: Can Women Teach?

November 9, 2009

This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship president Mark Earley.

On the night of October 23rd, a 15-year-old girl in Richmond, California, was brutally assaulted by as many as seven young men between the ages of 15 and 20.

One policeman called the events of that night a “barbaric act” and “one of the most disturbing crimes in my 15 years as a police officer.”

What disturbed him wasn’t only the overt criminal acts but the response—or more precisely, the lack of a response—of those in a position to help.

According to the police, the victim had left a dance at Richmond High School and was in the school’s courtyard when she was gang-raped. As heinous as this crime was, what made it a national story was that approximately 20 kids witnessed the attack and did nothing. Nothing.

Actually, it was worse than that. As word spread about the attack, people came to check it out. There are reports that some of the bystanders took pictures of the assault with their cell phone cameras instead of calling for help. Others laughed and a few even joined in the attack.

No sooner had police found the victim, semi-conscious under a bench, than attention focused on the behavior of the crowd. Comparisons were made to the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in New York, in which her neighbors supposedly ignored her cries for help because they didn’t want to get involved.

While how many of Genovese’s neighbors actually heard her cries for help is in dispute, there are no such doubts in this case.

So why didn’t anyone do something to help? An obvious factor is fear. Richmond, California, has been described as “one of the nation’s most dangerous cities,” and its murder rate is higher than Oakland’s or Los Angeles’. The school even recently approved the use of surveillance cameras following a series of violent crimes on campus.

In this setting, people have reason to believe that authorities cannot protect them and, thus, getting involved will put them at risk.

Even so, many people live in dangerous neighborhoods where “snitching” is dangerous, but they don’t gather to watch another person being brutalized, much less take photos or laugh. After all, the attack ended when people down the street from the school learned what was happening and called the police.

The response that shocked the nation speaks to an indifference to the well-being of others among some of our children. Instead of empathy, these young people showed apathy—and, as one observer said, “a total indifference to [behavior], customs, mores, and sensibilities,” the things we associate with being civilized.

What happened in Richmond, California, is an unsettling reminder that the standards that make a good society possible cannot be taken for granted. It doesn’t take much to set them aside. That’s why those standards and the beliefs that make them possible must be taught and renewed continuously.

As one Oakland pastor wrote, what happened on October 23rd “is reflective of a societal breakdown that is not limited to the Richmond city limits.”

And that’s what should disturb us the most.