Violence & the Bible
Violence & The Bible Most nights, when we’re putting our sons to bed, we have Oliver read his Bible Storybook to Elijah. It’s a good Bible for their age and stage of life. When I was preparing for the subject…
stephen
An Overview of the Bible
About a year ago, a book written by Dan Kimball called How (Not) To Read the Bible came out. When I got the email that this book was coming out, I pre-ordered it and planned to do a teaching series…
Becoming More Generous
Giving Is Good Jesus is known for his profound wisdom and paradigm-breaking teaching. Even 2,000 years after Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, his followers are challenged to live in the ways he has called us. One of those countercultural teachings…
Debt, Stress, & the Bible
Winning The Lottery In 1988, a man named William Bud only had $5 in his checking account when he bought some lottery tickets. As fate would have it, Bud won the $16,000,000 jackpot. It’s not hard to imagine how Bud…
The Path to Financial Peace
We went to Florida in our old 2012 Ford Escape with 210,000 miles on it last December. All my friends were taking bets if it would break down in Nashville, Atlanta, or Orlando. We made it back, though! We found…
Life-Changing Relationships
Finding Nemo Have you ever seen the Disney movie Finding Nemo? Finding Nemo came out 20 years ago. That makes you feel old, doesn’t it? For those who haven’t seen the film in two decades, it’s about an overprotective dad…
Inclusive “Circles”
“Circles” are essential to us at Madison Church. They’re part of our strategy for connecting people with God and each other. We have systems to help people read the Bible daily and pray regularly. We also have a plan for…
When Crisis Hits, & There’s No One To Talk With
Awkward Family Photos Have you ever looked back at a picture from childhood and wondered how your parents would let you leave the house looking like that? I do. I try to not look back at some of my old…
Community As Self-Care
A bunch of years ago, I worked at a bank. When I was being trained, there was this particular form we had to fill out and send in periodically. They taught me to take this piece of paper and roll…
Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Relationships
Genesis was not written to directly answer our modern questions about subjects like evolutionary biology and human sexuality, and yet the creation narrative (Gen 1-2) speaks indirectly to both. Just as most, but not all, animals fit into the classifications…