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Ashamed/Unashamed

It's So Cold Outside...

Toni Blay via Compfight

Rachel Held Evans posted this astounding reflection on her blog this week. Normally, we post a short excerpt of the blogs we link to, but this one MUST be read in it’s entirety. It reminds us of what is both ugly and beautiful in the church and ourselves and calls us back to the good news of Jesus. Please visit Rachel on her blog and read this prophetic piece. We need voices like hers.

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Lighten Up: Your Church Should Welcome This Friend

Cartoon via nakedpastor.com

Giant Jesus

Yesterday’s post featured a video of Greg sharing about the role of the church in manifesting God’s character to the world. Here are some follow-up thoughts on that topic. The NT often uses the metaphor of “the body of Christ” to describe the church. When Jesus walked the earth, he did so in an ordinary…

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Does the Bible forbid interracial marriages?

Absolutely not! Racist Christians used to argue against interracial marriage by quoting Old Testament passages that prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jews. This prohibition had nothing to do with race, however. In fact, there was no concept of different “races” until white Europeans invented it during the Colonial period, partly to justify their enslavement of other…

Are You a Church Misfit?

Romain Guy via Compfight Here’s a lovely reflection from Rachel Held Evans on the experience of finding that your questions are unwelcome in church. Evans is bumping up against this material as she reads Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior. I suspect this kind of experience is much more common that we’d like to admit. Can you…

Podcast: How Do You Expel Unrepentant People From Your Church?

Greg gets tough on Tom Foolery and discusses dealing with behavior that is sinful and unrepentant. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0205.mp3

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Lighten Up: A Seeker-Sensitive Church Naming Committee