What do you understand the local church to be? Is it a group of people who all think in unison with a set of beliefs to which each has subscribed? Or, is it a group of people who are worshiping God together even though they may not all agree to what that means? I recently read a post on Travis Flanagan’s website Help Me Believe titled “What Is the Local Church” in which he provided this definition of the local church.Posts Tagged ‘spiritual’
Church: A Band of Jesus Followers
Posted: April 28, 2018 in Christian Life, ChurchTags: Christ, Christianity, church, Jesus, Religion, spiritual
What do you understand the local church to be? Is it a group of people who all think in unison with a set of beliefs to which each has subscribed? Or, is it a group of people who are worshiping God together even though they may not all agree to what that means? I recently read a post on Travis Flanagan’s website Help Me Believe titled “What Is the Local Church” in which he provided this definition of the local church.Living Into Easter
Posted: March 26, 2018 in Christian LifeTags: Christianity, Courage, Death, Easter, Good Friday, Gottes Freitag, Grace, Hope, Jesus, Loneliness, Messiah, Pain, Rain, spiritual
Easter is coming. As I sit here looking out onto a rain-slicked Tucker Avenue and parks, which are trying to become spring-green, under a thin, grey, leaky sky, I do not feel energy for tackling the tasks of the day. The freshness spring—officially five days old—should usher in is absent from the scene. How inappropriate, incongruent with the season today seems—temperature in the forties, drizzly rain, and grey skies does not paint an image of joyful spring with kids (goats or children) frolicking in green meadows. But it’s going to get worse.
Being Christian and Gay – Part 5: A Christian’ Sexual Ethic
Posted: October 3, 2017 in Being Christian and Gay, Gay LifeTags: Christian, Commitment, ethics, gay, Love, marriage, Relationship, sexual Ethics, spiritual
We have considered a context for our conversation—personal experience–and biblical texts that have been used to address sexual orientation; now let’s look at ethics, knowing right from wrong. My ethics are derived from my theological understanding, which is informed by my relationship with Jesus, my reading of Scripture, and my interpretation of the contemporary sociocultural environment. (more…)
Being Christian and Being Gay – An Introduction
Posted: August 29, 2017 in UncategorizedTags: Christian, Christianity, church, ethics, gay, marriage, sex, sexuality, spiritual
“Being Christian and Gay” is a topic I am addressing in a series of posts on this blog. I am Christian. I am gay.
There is a dichotomy of passion and reason in current responses to the gay-Christian debate. Both of these fundamental responses—passion and reason—ebb and flow to a degree; but passion, which often is blind, usually usurps reason, which comes only after passion is quieted. It is my hope that my experience will shed some light on living a Christian life as a gay man. (more…)
