Last week was the Willow Creek Association’s Global Leadership Summit. The annual conference is a convergence of business, government, social, and church leaders curated by the WCA and headlined by Bill Hybels. Past Summits have featured speakers like Bill Clinton, Jack Welch, and Bono. But the buzz surrounding this year’s lineup (or “faculty” as the WCA likes to call them) was focused on who would not be there.

Days before the event Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz withdrew because of an online petition launched by Change.org. The gay-advocacy group accused Willow Creek of being anti-gay and threatened to boycott Starbucks if Schultz spoke at the Leadership Summit. The controversy was widely reported in the press, and as 165,000 people gathered at 450 locations around the world for the WCA…

Back in college my professor of American religion gave us an interesting assignment. We had to visit a number of local churches, sit in their sanctuaries, and write down our observations of the spaces. Based on these observations, we were to deduce the theological beliefs of each congregation. How were the seats arranged? What was the visual focus of the space? Why did the Presbyterian church have a soaring pulpit? Why did the Episcopal church have a baptismal font at the entrance? (The most intriguing churches were ones where their explicit theology did not conform to the implicit theology communicated by their space.)

Because of this assignment I was intrigued (and rather proud) when I discovered my 9-year-old daughter conducting a similar exercise. Zoe has joined me at…

I like airplanes, and given the amount I travel that is a good thing. Seeing these incredible machines–aluminum and composite monuments of human ingenuity–makes the atrocities of most American airports almost bearable. (My genetically tanned, ambiguously ethnic appearance must scream “al-Qaeda!” I get patted down more than Donald Trump’s mane on a windy day.)

Modern airliners, as one author put it, are “the most complicated machines man has ever built.” But they are still regarded as the safest form of transportation. There are over 20,000 commercial flights every day in the United States. If you were to drive rather than fly one of those routes, you would be 65 times more likely to be killed. Perhaps more surprising, since 1980 the number of airplanes, flights, and passengers has…

Last week the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist, gathered for its annual meeting in Phoenix. The media pounced when stats were released indicating SBC membership had shrunk for the fourth consecutive year. In addition (or should I say subtraction), the number of baptisms declined by over 17,000 in 2010 compared to 2009. This is the eighth drop in 10 years.

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay, was honest about the statistics. “This is not a blip. This is a trend. And the trend is one of decline,” he said.

Read more from the report on the SBC.

The news about the SBC’s decline swirling around both the secular and Christian media only adds to the dismay in recent years. It seems like every time I logon there…

Read part 1 of ‘Redefining Radical’

Consider who is celebrated in most churches. Typically it is the person who is engaged in “full time Christian work”–the pastor or missionary, or people who pursue social causes that result in a big and measurable impact. (Who isn’t talking about William Wilberforce these days?) Similarly, those who behave like pastors or missionaries periodically in their workplace, neighborhood, or perhaps on a short-term trip overseas are praised for these actions. But a church will rarely, if ever, celebrate a person’s “ordinary” life and work.

For example, Andy Crouch tells about a pastor he met in Boston. The pastor recounted the story of a woman in his congregation who was a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency. She played a vital role in…

Many churches focus on providing a compelling worship experience. The desire is to attract people to an excellent production where they can sing, learn, and leave feeling renewed. For decades we’ve called this approach “seeker-sensitive.” But does that sensitivity have limits?

News reports broke last week about a 12-year-old boy with cerebral palsy being removed from Elevation Church for being a “distraction” during the Easter service. The boy’s mother said, “Easter Sunday he got all dressed up, got ready to go, no small feat with a kiddo like him.” But, according to the report, after the opening prayer inside the sanctuary the boy voiced his own kind of “Amen.”

“We were very abruptly escorted out,” the mother said.

Following the incident, the boy’s mother contact church leaders with…

“How radical do I have to be?” the suburban mom asked. She had recently read a number of Christian books decrying the self-centered nature of much of the American church. The authors had apparently had enough of the consumer orientation of their congregations. As a remedy, each of the books calls readers to live a counter-cultural life of radical sacrifice and mission. The books, while inspiring, left this woman feeling “exhausted.”

“I totally agree with the their assessment of the church. We are too self- centered,” she explained. “But how radical is enough? Should I sell my house and car? It is wrong for my kids to be attending a private school? Do I need to move oversees and work with orphans? I want to really experience the…

Hey friends. Many of you have been asking when my new book With: Reimagining the Way you Relate to God will be released. The official date is August 23. It’s is available for pre-order now on Amazon and other sites. But you can read the first chapter for free online. The publisher has released it as a free sample…kinda like those nice ladies at Costco with the samples of fried mozzarella. Thank you Costco ladies, and thank you Thomas Nelson. Click here to read Chapter 1: Life After Eden.

My college roommate, Dave Schreier, teaches middle school in Ohio, and during the summer he operates a wedding photography business. But what really gets his blood pumping is helping others. He regularly travels internationally both to further his experiential knowledge as a geography teacher and to take stunning photographs. (Check out some of his images from Alaska, India, Peru, and Papua.)

A few years ago Dave traveled to Papua New Guinea where he met a remarkable woman named Aunty Rosa. This meek woman has made it her responsibility to care for, feed, clothe, and educate many of the homeless and orphaned children in her village. Dave couldn’t stop talking about the children and showing me his photographs. He also couldn’t stop thinking about how to help Aunty…

How do you define success? It goes without saying that those committed to Jesus Christ and his purposes in the world ought to define success differently than other people. After all, Jesus himself refused his culture’s narrow view of success; in fact he regularly clashed with his own disciples about it. While they were excited by growing crowds and political power, Jesus reminded them that “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). Faithfulness to the Father led Jesus to defy the crowds and accept the cross.

A lot has been said about the danger of putting church growth and effectiveness ahead of all else. Gordon MacDonald calls this temptation missionalism and powerfully explains how younger…