Guest Contributor
“Prove it, Jesus!”
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Essay by: Dan Kent A small crowd of merchants tried to remain reasonable as they watched Jesus crash around the temple in utter pandemonium. The merchants woke up that morning, ate breakfast, then came to…
What a Difference a Day Makes
Category: Essays, Guest Contributor
Essay by: Cameron Smedley “What a difference a day makes.” My grandmother used to say that. It was her almost daily response to the changing condition of her battle with cancer. It would be a…
Must We Believe in Satan? As a Personal Agent?
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by: Dan Kent Have you ever noticed how boldly some Christians proclaim their belief in God while simultaneously shying away from belief in Satan? How strange, especially since we all form our beliefs in…
Why Church: In the Age of Decontructing, is the Church Worth Keeping?
Category: Essays, Guest Contributor
Essay by: Larissa Lee When I was growing up, there were a lot of prayers asking God for “revival”. I’m not sure what we were asking for, but I suspect it was some kind of…
Must I Become Less?
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by Dan Kent Have you ever proclaimed a theological belief loudly and publicly only to have the Bible seem to proclaim the exact opposite? In 2019 Fortress Press published my book Confident Humility. There…
On Judgement
Category: Essays, Guest Contributor
An essay by Cameron Smedley. I often find myself walking through the world more as a judge of what’s wrong with this beautiful creation than basking in the miracle of it all. I get up…
Love: The Only Truly Creative Thing We Can Do
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by Dan Kent I daydream often. Lately, in my fog of contemplation, I’ve pondered a question about creativity: Can a person truly be creative? I’ve concluded this: The only thing we truly create is…
3 Roots of Discrimination in God’s Church
Category: Essays, Guest Contributor
Topics: The Church
How Churches Can Serve Differently-Abled People Better Ministering based on physical observation is the opposite of compassion. Essay by Todd Lollar It might surprise you to know that secular areas of society are not the…
Inhale-Exhale
Category: Essays, Guest Contributor
Essay by Elizabeth Berget It was the drone of circling helicopters that woke me up at 5:15 on a Friday morning in May. I had slept fitfully, like a first-time mother, my bedroom windows open…
To Bleed or Not to Bleed: Reflections on Animal Sacrifices
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by Jesse Birkey Is God good or not? “Hey, make sure you don’t let the dog out tonight.” My father started out the door but threw one final look at me. “Or if you…
Up and Down, Wright and Wrong
Category: Art, Guest Contributor
Poem by Elizabeth Berget Down in Virginia, the cops are yelling Get down on the ground While up the street, the crowd is yelling Hands up, Don’t Shoot This falling and rising, A threaded needle,…
It is Finished. It is Enough.
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by Elizabeth Berget Shared with permission from her website HERE. I’ve been known to joke that I most likely won’t even be able to SEE my mom in heaven because she’ll be so much…
The Fight of Our Lives – The Battle Against Hurt
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, Following Jesus
Article by Larissa Lee When I talk about trauma, forgiveness, recovery, and all of the things that go along with these, this is not a theoretical or academic discussion for me. I have complex PTSD…
Is 2020 Judgment from God?
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by Larissa Lee 2020 has been the ugliest year the US has seen for a while. As I write this we’ve had two hurricanes rage towards the gulf of Texas and Lousianna. There are…
Hearing God’s Voice and Discerning God’s Will
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Article by Larissa Lee When someone says, “God told me…” I instinctively cringe. I’ve had self-appointed prophets use “God told me” to emotionally manipulate me. We’ve all likely heard an evangelist claim “God told them”…
From Christianity to Atheism and Back Again
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Topics: Apologetics
Article by Larissa Lee Do you ever wonder what makes a person become an atheist? Or what makes an atheist become a Christian? I’m in a rare position to tell you the answer to both….
The Paintings of Susan Outlaw (Saturday Art Share)
Category: General, Guest Contributor
We come around a bend, or up over a hill, and we stop, and maybe we gasp, and we lock our eyes on a scene and we mutter something like, “that’s beautiful.’ When we try…
Can God Make a Rock So Big that Even God Cannot Lift It?
Category: Guest Contributor
Tags: Apologetics, Omnipotence
Article by Dan Kent The moment you confess your belief in God, I have found, some clever fella will emerge from the crowd to stand before you and ask: “Can God make a rock so…
Saturday Art Share: The Blame
Category: General, Guest Contributor
This week’s Saturday Art Share brings you THE BLAME by me, Dan Kent. The Blame is a two minute parable about the futility of violence. In came to me twenty years ago during an election…
Saturday Art Share: The Photography of Thomas Jay Oord
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Commentary by Dan Kent I carry a dread in my heart that human progress has whittled nature almost down to nothing. In my heart I assume we’ve marked and tagged, and moved all God’s creatures…