We’re a little past midway in our late-summer series called ‘Christian’ … where we’ve been talking about what that word means and what it doesn’t mean. We’ve discovered that ‘Christian’ is a word used by those outside the faith … to describe those inside—not a nice word either. But, Jesus’ followers didn’t call themselves ‘Christian’ and Jesus never called his followers that. He had a very specific, very technical word he used to describe those who followed him: disciple. And, folks, unlike the word ‘Christian’—mentioned only 3 times in the...
We are right in the middle of a series called ‘Christian’ as we begin today. And we’ve been talking about the fact that you could be a Christian and believe just about anything you want, do just about anything you want, and adopt just about any lifestyle you want … because the Bible doesn’t even tell us what a Christian really is. Christian was a term used by those outside the faith … to negatively describe or label those inside the faith, but it wasn’t the term used by Jesus...
The summer that Jane and I met, we were both on staff at Asbury Acres United Methodist Church Camp, Almond, Wisconsin. When we could, we attended church on Sunday mornings as a staff that summer. That was the summer that I learned what kind of a pastor I never wanted to be… Oh, I stayed involved in the church even that summer—as a guest. I and others from the staff would do special music and help out where we could. The pastor, however, seemed to spend most of his...
