Who are we, honestly? God’s, yet…
Usher sang “Amazing Grace” at the emotional Los Angeles Lakers game on January 31, 2020 — the first game following Kobe Bryant’s..
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Loose ends
Guest commentary by Karl Travis Editor’s note: This piece was originally written on February 26, 2020 The hardest part of dying is..
Montreat asks: What could we do now?
Guest commentary by Richard DuBose When the age of the coronavirus dawned, Montreat Conference Center was unprepared. I don’t mean we didn’t..
Opinion: Surviving April
(RNS) — This isn’t the April we wanted. We wanted spring training. We wanted to go to church on Easter Sunday. We..
They didn’t teach us this in seminary!
Guest blog by Molly Smerko “They didn’t teach us this in seminary,” I read as I aimlessly scrolled through Facebook one day..
Opinion: COVID-19 could end church as we know it. And I feel fine.
(RNS) — The coronavirus pandemic has quickly swept the globe, throwing just about every human institution into chaos. Faith communities are no..
Prayer for the class of 2020
Compassionate God, for many of us these days feel like an exile. We remember that your people have walked through exile of..
Pandemic prayer for college students
God of acceptance letters, scholarships and internships, we ask you to comfort: Those whose “best years of their lives” were uprooted. Those..
Investing in music is the church’s civic responsibility
If the church wants to contribute to a society grounded in empathy and love, it has a civic responsibility to enthusiastically fund..
Lent in the COVID-19 wilderness: Reflections of a college chaplain
Guest commentary by Ashley-Anne Masters The last time I saw many of my college students in person was Ash Wednesday. During the..
How to survive social distancing with your family
Guest commentary by Matthew J. Skolnik Some of my friends are celebrating that their introverted nature finally feels useful. Others who have..
Parable of the Brown Girl: The Sacred Lives of Girls of Color
Khristi Lauren Adams Fortress Press, 200 pages Reviewed by Fay C. Acker Through contemporary parables, Khristi Lauren Adams introduces us to seven..
In the midst of a worldwide health crisis, J. Herbert Nelson and Diane Moffett write a pastoral letter to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
LOUISVILLE (PNS) — The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the President and Executive Director of..
A word of prayer from the 223rd General Assembly co-moderators for these uncertain times…
Eternal God, sustainer, provider, God of all wisdom and knowledge, Our spirits are weary, our faith quivers, our minds get clouded by..
A prayer in the time of the coronavirus
Guest commentary by Jeffrey Myers God our Creator, who calls the stars by name and sets the fireflies dancing, who makes the mountains..
Congregational leadership: Responding to COVID-19
Guest commentary by Susan Krummel For leaders in congregations, the current health crisis is new territory. I was in worship on Sunday,..
Daniel Deitrich
“I don’t think I could follow the way of Jesus without the support of those around me or without the practices we..
A village full of goodness (40 years ago)
40 years ago — March 17, 1980 “During the first four years of the 1940s, a little Huguenot village perched on a..
A theology of leadership during crisis?
Guest commentary by Matthew J. Skolnik It appears to me that as the church wrestles with how to respond to COVID-19, that..
Who is God, really? God is the Incarnate
Singing of where and who God is, Rabindranath Tagore, a Hindu philosopher and a Nobel laureate for literature, passionately insisted, “God..
Who is God, really? God is triune
What God looks like In his TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of a little girl..
Bedrock for a Church on the Move
Merwyn S. Johnson In Christ Supporting Ministries, 244 pages Reviewed by Thomas W. Currie Merwyn Johnson has written a remarkable book —..
Brian Blount asks NEXT Church: Are you at least as faithful as a rock?
CINCINNATI — Stones memorialize words, people, moments, movements. Brian Blount, president of Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, looked to how Jesus..
NEXT Church testimonies: What do these stones mean in Cincinnati?
CINCINNATI — How is the Spirit at work in Cincinnati? How are people of faith responding to God’s call and serving others? ..
Love and Quasars: An Astrophysicist Reconciles Faith and Science
Paul Wallace Fortress Press, 132 pages Reviewed by David A. Douthett What would we do without subtitles in our theological libraries? They..