Hope in Bleak Midwinter On my lunch break at work, I open up Twitter, where I follow about as many media outlets and strangers as I do real acquaintances. I scroll and I sigh. Scandals, tragic accidents, over-incarceration, another shooting. Wars and rumors of wars couched by quippy memes and images of Baby Yoda. These trials and tragedies are... 
Emily Andrews 
Uncertainty Isn’t Your Enemy Rhett McLaughlin, half of the comedy duo Rhett and Link, wasn’t laughing much on February 9’s episode of their show “Ear Biscuits.” The topic was McLaughlin’s “spiritual deconstruction,” as he went public with how he had lost his faith in Jesus. The story was uncomfortable for him to tell and obviously agonizing for him to... 
Brett Seybold 
Reaching the Next Generation Using the Methods of Jesus One can read hundreds of articles on why the Church is losing the young. Through statistics and studies, we can point to psychological reasons, cultural reasonings, and more. Too many churches have believed the lie that the key to reaching the young is “figuring out” this generation. We change worship styles, hire hipster ministers, and... 
Kerry Cox 
What Makes Premarital Sex So Bad (Part 2) (For part 1, click here.) Sex before marriage is a violation of God’s design for sex. There are three primary reasons God has designed sex. Here’s the first one: He’s a good, good father. God designed sex as a gift for our joy and our pleasure, but as a gift that is not meant to... 
Aaron Brockett 
Christians and the Coronavirus “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8). As Christians, how can we bring unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind into the conversation surrounding the coronavirus? We can start by looking at the issue through... 
Taffeta Chime 
The Coronavirus: Facts and Fears Whenever I tell anyone that my husband is Chinese and that we recently took a trip to visit my sick mother-in-law in China, I have to state the caveat that, no, she does not have the coronavirus and, no, we do not either. We arrived back in the states about a week before the WHO... Taffeta Chime 
What is Mianzi, and What Can Christians Learn from it? During my most recent trip to China, I was struck by how many changes there had been from my previous visit five years ago. Then, I was lucky if I saw a blue sky with big, puffy clouds. But this time, for the first two weeks of my trip, we had beautiful blue skies (and... Taffeta Chime 
A Tale of Two Love Stories Love is one thing most women I know enjoy talking about. We like to share stories about who we are attracted to, or as married women, how we fell in love. Mike and I recently were reminiscing about when we blissfully fell in love. In 1988 Michael Lorenzo Patterson moved from sunny Tallahassee, Florida, to... 
Shawn Patterson 
What Makes Premarital Sex So Bad? (Part 1) It is so important as Christ followers that we give a good answer to this question because, largely, the culture has moved on. What I mean by that is that for us to suggest that you should save sex for marriage, the culture largely hears that as old-fashioned and unrealistic. That there’s no way that... Aaron Brockett 
The Super Bowl Halftime Show & Empowerment “Pretty Vulgar!” “A lot of folks aren’t liking it, but I’m inspired to go dancing after watching it!!! Jaylo makes 50 look amazing!!” “Disgusting at best.” “JLo at 50 is better than me at 23.” “Stunning as always!” As a female student in the art department of a state university, I get the chance to... 
Emma Goodwyn 
How Progressivism Refuels Progressive Christianity has discovered its source of renewable energy. Let’s start with a parable. Let’s say that a thousand years ago, a monastery in central Italy began to experience a divide. On arriving, young recruits who had counted the cost soberly took the vows and entered monastic life. Even though they were leaving the comforts... 
Daniel McCoy 
The Seasonal Nature of Discipling Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun.” The longer I live life, the more I find this to be true. This made me think about the concept of “discipling” and how often in my spiritual context and culture, discipling is looked at as a... 
Jon Sherwood 
When Church Comes to a Crossroads Your church will face multiple crossroads. At each one, you will probably find the church voicing dozens of competing opinions. In the confusion of figuring out whose voice should win out, it will be helpful to consider the choice which will be at the center of almost every crossroads you face. Option #1 This is... 
Kelvin Teamer 
The Basis for Church Unity In the New Testament, the favorite word used to describe the people of God is the word church. It is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which literally means “those called out.” In biblical times, it was a favorite word used to describe a meeting or gathering of people, as “the called out people,”... 
Bobby Harrington 
6 Lenses for Reading the Psalms (Part 2) (For Part 1, check here.) One of the most fascinating set of lenses to wear when reading the psalms are the “Jesus glasses.” We can be quite confident that Jesus grew up hearing, reading, praying, and singing the Psalms. Raised in a Torah observant Jewish home, attending weekly synagogue services, at the age of twelve... 
Matt Stafford 
The Slaughter of the Canaanites: An Answer “We don’t realize the extent to which our framework for thinking about the Bible and violence (among other topics) is culturally determined.” – John Goldingay In this article, I will discuss one of the most controversial and heavily debated subjects in the Bible: the Israelite conquest. The most pertinent questions regarding the Israelite conquest of... 
Jonathan Lichtenwalter