THEY SIT SIDE-BY-SIDE on my dining room table, a plastic dashboard Jesus (complete with a spring and an adhesive base) and an..
by Nancy Benson-Nicol Since 1986, when the Theological Education Fund (TEF) was established by the 198th General Assembly, we in the ministries..
JACK HABERER: Jim, your credentials are impressive: a teaching elder in the PC(USA); current professor of church history and dean at Vanderbilt..
The children’s time is the hardest part of worship. I stress about making that message meaningful far more than I worry about..
“Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.” Martin Luther King Jr. was only a..
Of all of the mythical ways to grow a church (Start a contemporary worship service! Call a pastor with a young family!..
The number one goal at summer camp for my teenage son, Garrison, was to skipper a Lightning, a 19-foot-long fully rigged sailing..
I never intended to earn a Masters of Divinity degree. As a 24-year-old, nondenominational fundapentacharisgelical, my faith mentors and peers disdained the..
Guest commentary from Todd McCoy Perhaps many of you have been pondering the same question I have: “Given the ongoing polarization of..
PASADENA, CALIF – “I was 18 years old when God called me to America,” explained Sam Theophylus, born in Hyderabad, India. “I didn’t know what it..
I was at a presbytery meeting recently, and, because all of our options for childcare fell through, I brought my 10-year-old son..
Most American churches have sought to diversify their membership in recent decades so that that the 21st century faith community would better..
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul urges the church to take care lest their liberty (the liberty to eat food offered to idols..
For a long time I didn’t think I was a very creative person because most of the creative people I knew were..
WHEN YOU GO TO A MEETING of the General Assembly of our communion, as I do every other year as part of..
Some church leaders call it a “challenge budget,” others a “faith budget.” I call it a bad idea. Faced with a gap..
“How big of a cardboard tree could you make for VBS this year?” I love questions like this! As a pastor, creative-type..
In 2010, the General Assembly approved an authoritative interpretation (AI) that included the following statements: “Neither the General Assembly nor the GAPJC..
A guest blog by Melissa DeRosia and Shannon Meacham Shannon: It was November 2010 when I stood in the pulpit of..
What’s next for mid councils in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? That’s still to be determined, as the decisions the 2014 General Assembly..
I recalled these familiar words from “Kung Fu Panda” as I was touring the facility of a church pastored by a colleague in a..
I love when caricatures get blown out of the water. I love when negative caricatures I’ve believed get disproven (I’d rather admit..
In a small house in Portsmouth, Virginia, we sat next to her as she lay in a hospital bed in her dining..
“A MAN CANNOT LIE,” said Sigmund Freud (in the sexist language of his day), “if he lies with his lips he will..
What should a teaching elder and the session try to accomplish in the first year of ministry? If people think that the..
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