Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt held a ceremonial signing of HB-1675, a camp safety law requiring summer camps and outdoor programs across the state to assess their site-specific hazards and prepare for severe weather emergencies.
HB-1675 requires all camp facilities, youth camps and outdoor programs in Oklahoma to conduct a site-specific hazard assessment and develop an emergency action plan before Jan. 1, 2027, with reviews every three years thereafter. The law takes effect Nov. 1, and the new safety standards will be in place for the Summer 2027 camp season.
The bill comes just a year after the first anniversary of the tragic floods at Camp Mystic in Texas, which killed 27 campers and staffers known as the Heaven’s 27. It is part of a growing national movement led by families of the Heaven’s 27, now known as the Safe Summers Foundation. The movement aims to establish stronger laws ensuring summer camps have reasonable protocols for emergency situations.
Women Ministers and the Evangelical Future
The battle over women in ministry is driven by the tensions in evangelicalism, not a slide into liberal theology.
Christian Nationalist Doublespeak
From the Moore to the Point newsletter: A state that can define who is in or out of the kingdom of God is a state that has the power to do anything.
Hell is no longer the driving force it used to be
Hell is having a moment, again.
On July 30, TikTok evangelist Whitney Lynn was kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight for proselytizing passengers and crew during a delay on the tarmac. While Lynn’s antics clearly garnish a following and fill her bank account in turn, I’d argue the very concept of hell itself is what motivates her to stand in the middle of an airplane aisle and spout a most fearsome version of the gospel.
Hell can be quite the motivator, after all. But what happens when fear of the fiery inferno is no longer the driving force it used to be? What happens when people change their minds?
Miracle on the Vistula? Mary, War, and the Perils of Holy Nationalism
Pope Leo’s remarks to Polish pilgrims on August 12 raise a question Anglicans have never answered in one voice: how should Christians speak of God, Mary, and history? The issue is not whether God governs the nations. The Prayer Book assumes that he does, and Christians rightly pray for deliverance, justice, and peace. The issue is whether the Church may identify a particular military victory as the result of Marian intervention.
This essay argues that Anglican Evangelicals should decline to do so. The claim exceeds Scripture, sits uneasily with Article XXII and the Prayer Book’s Godward discipline of prayer, and risks converting national deliverance into a badge of divine preference. Anglo-Catholics may make a narrower claim: Mary, as part of the communion of saints, prays with and for the Church. But prayerful intercession is not the same thing as an independent heavenly agency, still less a warrant for sanctifying national victory.
Beyond Education: The Formation of Pastors
It takes more than academic success and excellence in ministerial skills to produce pastors. That’s because the biblical qualifications for the pastorate are matters of spiritual maturity and Christlike character, and an academic institution can only do so much—by design—to influence and assess such things.
3 Challenges of Pastoral Ministry No One Warns You About
More than a decade into vocational ministry, I can tell you exactly which difficulties nearly took me out. They were not the ones I trained for. Seminary taught me to exegete a passage and sit with a grieving widow. Nobody taught me what to do with a deacon who corners me after the service to say the last pastor had “real vision,” or a Tuesday that starts at 6 a.m. and still has three things undone at midnight.
I walk every intern I mentor through these same three challenges before they meet them cold. Knowing they were coming might not have made my own adjustment smoother. It would have kept me from feeling blindsided.
Before We Forget the Baby Boomer Pastors
One day, there will be no more baby boomer pastors serving our churches.
That statement is not intended to be dramatic. It is simply reality. Every year, more pastors from the largest generation of ministers in American history retire. Every year, others finish their earthly race and enter the presence of the Lord.
When they are gone, many of their stories will be gone as well.
That would be a tremendous loss.
Could Jesus preach in our churches today?
We’ve become remarkably good at talking about Jesus without expecting Jesus to interrupt the room.
The Case of the Missing Youth Pastors
Kyle Hoffsmith came of age in what might be one of the world’s most effective youth groups—by the time he and his two brothers hit college, they all wanted to be pastors or missionaries, even though neither of their parents was in full-time vocational ministry.
But none of them wanted to be a youth pastor.
Schools across the US banned phones. Teens are demanding more offline support
As students across the country return to school this month, many will be confronting a new reality: classrooms without smartphones.
Educators and parents have long fronted the fight against the debilitating influence technology can wield. Yet, many young people say they have been left out of important conversations around school phone policies, which are now in effect in at least 39 states and Washington DC.
Help Teens Navigate Friendship in the Social Media Age
Seeking belonging and finding a friend group in the middle and high school years is a normal part of teen life that has always required wisdom. But the rise of social media use among teens is complicating their friendships, and teens need guidance.
Here are three ways to help teens navigate friendships in the social media age.
Why We Need More Pastors, Not Just Missionaries
Missionary work that never produces local pastors only delays the inevitable collapse or stagnation of the churches it creates. Drawing on thirty years in Zambia, the author argues that the Apostle Paul's model was never long-term missionary presence but rapid elder training and departure, leaving self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating congregations behind. The real metric for mission success is not how many missionaries are sent but how many trained, indigenous pastors are left in place to shepherd, disciple, and plant churches indefinitely.
I have observed a similar situation in the Episcopal Church. While a growing number of Episcopal churches are priestless, four out of five in my region alone, these priestless churches are ill-equipped to function without a full-time, stipendary clergy member to lead them. This attributable to the failure of Episcopal clergy to equip the congregations in their care to perform the work of ministry and therefore be able to function independently of clergy due to a growing clergy shortage. Rather they have encouraged clergy dependence.
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