Midweek Roundup: Nine Articles and One Magazine

Three Things to Remember This Christmas

Here are three principles we should all remember as we enter the Christmas season that will help people experience God’s love.... Read more

7 Secrets to Being a High Achiever

As I’ve reflected of what helps me accomplish much, I came up with some thoughts as to how I’m able to maintain productivity. Read more

If I Could Make One Change in Your Church

If the church asked me to suggest one thing that would make the greatest improvement in all they do, I would not hesitate. I would make their worship center a house of prayer. While that could involve a number of things, the most obvious change would take place in the worship service. Read more

Discipleship: Are We Hosts or Producers?

...I believe we have more to gain in our interpretation of the Great Commission if we back up a few characters and focus on a different word: make. The verb is where the action is, and as church leaders we have much to gain by examining what that looks like. I’d argue that the tension isn’t as much between evangelism or discipleship, but how actively we participate in both. Read more

Latest edition of Oakhill's Commentary Magazine Online

The Winter 2015 edition of Commentary is now on the Oak Hill website. Read online or download

Thinking Theologically about Islam

Like almost every other controversial subject in our day, sizing up Islam has become a proxy for where one stands in the culture wars....So where do we go from here? Well, as Christians, it’s never a bad idea to go to the Bible. We won’t answer every policy question, but at least we can put a few important truths in place as we try to think Christianly about Islam.Let’s briefly look at a pair of truths—one positive and one negative—under three different headings. Read more

Wheaton College Suspends Hijab-Wearing Professor After 'Same God' Comment

Larycia Hawkins said she wanted to show Advent solidarity with Muslims. Read more

Senior cleric calls for Archbishop of Canterbury to say sorry for Church’s response to homosexuality worldwide

As the Church of England faces another scandal this week over same-sex marriage and its treatment of clergy in same sex relationships, a senior Anglican professor has called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to apologise for the Church’s mistakes in its response to homosexuality around the world. Read more

The list of apologies for which Martyn Percy calls would alienate the Global South Primates and derail the Primates Meeting. I suspect that Percy may know that and his intent is to do just that as the Primates gathered at that meeting might make decisions that adversely affect the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada and the liberal cause in the Anglican Communion. Justin Welby would be sabotaging his stated purpose for calling the Primates Meeting if he gives into pressure from Percy and the liberal wing of the Anglican Communion.

Church tent noise level now a religious liberty test

Vintage Church, a Louisiana Baptist congregation, has filed a lawsuit against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and Jefferson Parish in a dispute over sound levels during Sunday worship services in a tent serving as the congregation's temporary meeting area. Read more

Unfriendly noise abatement and zoning laws comprise a threat to both established and new churches. A church plant in which I was involved in the 1980s was forced to change its meeting place because residents of the neighborhood in which its meeting place was located objected to churchgoers parking their cars on the street in front of their residences. Other new church plants have experienced the same problem.

Photo:  A jacaranda tree in blossom. Just a reminder that below the equator in the Southern Hemisphere it is summer.