Adaptability or Consistency?

I just finished the book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath.  First of all, I highly recommend the book.  It’s an excellent treatment of the issues surrounding the Reformation and all its major players from Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer and others. One of the things it talked about was how Protestantism, outside of the Lutheran [...]

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I Wish I Believed…

Back in the age of dial-up, when regular people were just beginning to get on the internet, the first things I discovered were message boards. There were tons of them. And the ones I seemed to gravitate to the most were theology boards and ones devoted to debating Christianity with atheists and agnostics. Generally speaking [...]

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Internet Monk: The Value of Liturgy

There’s an excellent discussion over at iMonk’s site about liturgy.  I wanted to highlight one response from a Baptist minister in particular because he comes from a decidedly “non-liturgical” background.  I’ve said similar things in describing why I like liturgy to my anti-liturgy friends but he does an even better job.  Go check the full [...]

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Six Flags Over Jesus

“Yeah, that’s good. I guess I was thinking a little less theologically and more practical philosophy of ministry stuff. For example, missional is the opposite of attractional. The attractional church puts on the dog and pony show to get people in the door. Being a sacramental church seems to free us from the need to [...]

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Musical Disconnect

This will be quick. I’m in church this morning. We went to the contemporary service this week. It was fine for the most part. But sometimes I wonder if the worship leader pays attention to the lyrics of the songs he chooses. After one song is done, the band goes quiet for a few seconds. [...]

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Protestants and "Spiritual" Means vs "Tangible" Means

I’m reading This Is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers The Real Presence by Mark Shea. It’s a short read, only about 50 pages long. But it’s really posing some interesting thoughts to me and one passage in particular stuck out. He’s speaking of the Protestant suspicion of anything that smacks of “works” religion or falling [...]

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Six Denominations in Six Weeks

Great article up on RelevantMagazine.com from a guy who has attended Southern Baptist churches all his life and decided he needed to branch out and experience how some of his fellow brothers and sisters worshipped on Sundays. In six weeks time, he visited a different Southern Baptist church than his own (with a different style [...]

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Silence is golden

I’ve now visited two different Anglican churches and two different Catholic churches and there’s something strikingly different about the atmosphere before the service compared to the atmosphere before the evangelical churches I’ve been part of. Walk into your typical evangelical church (especially if its of the more contemporary variety) and this is the norm: People [...]

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At an impasse

Well, the dreaded moment has come. I was hoping to avoid it but it’s here. We’re at an impasse on the church question. I’ve been visiting some different churches hoping to find something close to the Anglican one I enjoyed so much, but with a stronger children’s program and other elements my wife would like. [...]

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Who decided?

As I’ve been exploring more traditional worship approaches in recent months, I’ve noticed something going on and I’m still trying to work out in my head what it means. When I first began to ponder what I was looking for, I thought what I wanted were a few simple traditional elements: more hymns and less [...]

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I’m not alone

Well, I know I’m not alone from some from reading some of the combox entries here. But sometimes around here I feel that way. There’s an excellent article at Christianity Today on the movement in evangelical circles toward revisiting the past, as in liturgy, the Christian calendar, Advent, even the Divine Hours, candles and incense. [...]

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20,000 Popes vs. 1

One of my favorite reads in the blogosphere, Michael Spencer (aka The Internet Monk) posted this quote in a post about Catholicism: “I would rather have 20,000 “little popes” with their Bibles, all believing they can err and be corrected by scripture, rather than one pope who cannot err or be corrected by scripture.” What [...]

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How do you find a true church?

I was reading someone’s testimony of their struggle with this question and found he was asking a lot of the same questions I am. Let me post it then I’ll continue: As an active Protestant in my mid-twenties I began to feel that I might have a vocation to become a minister. The trouble was [...]

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Isn’t it ironic…don’tcha think?

This won’t be a terribly long entry, but I just wanted to comment on an interesting exchange I had on a message board with someone of a more Reformed background. As I’m working through all this stuff in my head, I’m engaging Catholics and Protestants in some debate over various differences in doctrine between the [...]

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The Journey Begins

First, a little background since none of you know me from Adam. You can decide later if you care. I’m an evangelical Protestant. I’ve been a Christian since shortly before my 17th birthday and am coming up on the 20-year anniversary of the day I came to Christ. I grew up in the Methodist church [...]

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