Church

Protecting Abusers in the Name of Protecting the Brand

What happens when church leadership not only protects abusers but sets up a system to enable them?  We Forgot How to "People" A friend of mine once lamented to me that her main grievance with the Church today is that we just don't know how to "people." For an institution that was created firstly to worship God and secondly, to make disciples, we have certainly forgotten that people are the key factor to both of those things. People are the heart and soul of a church because a church would not be necessary were it not for the existence of

February 29th, 2024|Christian Life, The Church, Working Life, Worship|0 Comments

The Not Exhaustive But Ridiculously Too Long List of Grievances

It seems like the Church today is prone to spiritual abuse. Whether Catholic or Protestant, mega or mini-sized, the Church is rampant with bad leaders acting selfishly, manipulating and lying for purposes that defy logic. Why? What is the pattern that facilitates this behavior? And how can we get better? Be better? Do better? This is the conversation I think we must have. Now. I've been a part of all kinds of churches, of all kinds of denominations and theological backgrounds, of all sizes. I've attended the little ol' country church on the county line and the mega-church with a

January 22nd, 2024|Christian Life, The Church, Worship|0 Comments

Is Marketing Jesus Killing the Church?

My last article, which several thousand of you read (thank you so much), apparently struck a chord. It's becoming undeniably clear that something is fundamentally broken about the modern Church movement in the West. Too many are leaving disenchanted, confused, hurt, broken, and even questioning their faith. If it were only me, I would have shrugged it off as some sort of personal deficiency or misunderstanding. But I have heard from hundreds of you over the last few days, reaching out (mostly anonymously) to tell me you've experienced the same things I did -- namely abuse and a woeful lack

January 9th, 2024|Christian Life, The Church, Worship|0 Comments

Deconstructing My Deconstruction

I began writing this article in February 2023. Scratch that. I began wrestling with the content of this post in January 2020, but I hadn't been able to articulate it until now. Even so, you can see that it's January 2024 and I'm just now posting it. There are reasons for that, too, which I will get into later. I haven't really shared my story. I've held a lot back and there are lot of reasons for that. But it's time. 2023 brought for me and my family some huge changes -- from walking away from our church denomination of

I Can Love Jesus Without Going to Church

I hear this a lot these days: "I can love Jesus without going to church." I suppose you can. But you won't get very far. If you're one of those people, don't tune out. There's something you need to hear. When I was in college, I saw a tshirt that said, "Jesus is not a religion." I loved it. I thought it was so perfect. That's right, Jesus not a religion! What a revolutionary thought!! It was that mindset that set me down the path to the version of Christian "spirituality" I sported for many years. I loved to say

June 25th, 2014|Christian Life|0 Comments

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