Loving, Learning, and Leading

But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should fulfill his wife's sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband's needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won't be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I Corinthians 7:2-6, NLT The letter to the Corinthians by the Apostle Paul is startling in its frankness about sexual relationships.  This letter had been in response to a letter sent from the leaders of the Corinthian church regarding issues of sexuality.  Corinth was renown for its pagan temples and rites that often included having sexu...

Shrinking Faith One of the dominant sociological processes of the past 300 years has been the process of secularization. To many Christians who have belonged in the church for the past 20+ years, we confuse secularization with the concept of being "worldly". Worldliness is the theological quality of living according to a world view that is opposed, or antagonistic against the will and way of God. Secularization is somewhat different. It is the description of the way in which religion, in its multifaceted expressions, becomes less and less important to cultures, organizations, communities, and individuals. Secularization began in earnest during the time in which historians call the enlightenment, or the age of modernity. It is in that age that scientific inquiry became the dominant way in which we validated truth. Therefore, the worldview became more empirical and there was less room for the supernatura. Evidence of secularization can be seen in the diminishing importan...

Leadership and managing I was recently speaking to a good friend of mine regarding what is needed to make change. She is a young leader of a fairly typical health institution. Health institutions, like corporations, and churches develop their own character, flavor, and culture. These cultures are often helpful initially, but unless they change with the culture and needs around them, they often become their own enemy. The church is no different. The culture that led our parent's to successfully establish a church will not engage today's highly changing culture. In 1950, the average community was fairly homogeneous and had been that way for over 35 years. That means that culturally, ethinically, religiously, and socioeconomically, communities were the same for generations with change being slow and predictable. Today's culture is completely different with major changes in the average community coming about every 7 years. This means that a church that wants to effectively enga...