This recent Washington Post article highlights an idea foreign to the majority of us living in Western culture. Dr. Bill Thomas contends, “…there is a ‘third’ phase of life beyond adulthood that can be as rich as either of the phases that came before.” This idea has implications for the church – if only we have…

Some of you have followed the account of our recent (mis)adventure of our most recent move via Facebook and Twitter. After more than 3-1/2 years in a quirky 1970’s townhome in a northwest suburb of Chicago, our landlord told us toward the end of January that we’d need to find a new place to live…

Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and told his followers to do the same. The call to mission has always been at the heart of the church’s identity. When the first crop of new believers came to faith during the Jesus Movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, many of them discovered…

What was first-century Judaism like? How did first-century Judaism help people approach God and draw holiness into their lives? When Jesus, a Jew, thought of God and Scripture and prayer, what kinds of things was he thinking about? By looking at the life of Jesus as a Jewish life, this book seeks to uncover the…

Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19-20, Luke 5:34-35)  Lent was a word once commonly used to describe the lengthening days as winter moved toward spring in the northern…

The middle-aged man stood before our group of mostly thirty-something congregational lay leaders and announced with the kind of certainty that comes from being a paid, invited consultant, “80% of most congregations are comprised of people with the spiritual gift of helps.” Our pastoral team had invited him to come to our church in the early 1980′s to…