How should we think about social media use during this coronavirus pandemic and the resulting period of quarantine?
Here’s my advice: Continue reading “Social Media During a Pandemic”
Tag: church
Church in a Quarantine
How do you do church in quarantine? Due to the coronavirus, the State of Iowa now prohibits all gatherings over 10 people (including spiritual gatherings). This is a wise and good prohibition during the coronavirus, one which our church will obey.
So what will we do? Continue reading “Church in a Quarantine”
Church Response and Precautions to COVID-19
The elders at my church published the following statement on our church’s COVID-19 (coronavirus) response and precautions. Please ask your church leaders to consider a similar response, appropriate to your community context. Continue reading “Church Response and Precautions to COVID-19”
When Your Church Can’t Meet: The Value of Liturgy
Liturgy is the form of worship that a church walks through when it assembles.
“Liturgy is the customary public worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activity reflecting praise, thanksgiving, supplication or repentance.” source
In our church, our liturgy takes the form of Call to Worship, Confession of Sin (or Lament), Remembering the Gospel, Thanksgiving and Prayer, Offering, Scripture Reading, Sermon, and Benediction (Blessing and Sending). These elements include both songs and responsive readings, as well as times of silent meditation.
A benefit of a liturgical form is that when your church has to assemble in small groups or cannot assemble at all, the people know what to do. When your people cannot be together as a whole, they can be together in their liturgy.
If your church can’t assemble this Sunday, and you need a worship service in your home, our church posts our entire liturgy with song videos on our blog. Search the “Service Previews.” Then go to Sermons page to hear the message for that Sunday.
Need more songs to sing? Visit my worship song page or Hymnicity.
Ministerial Sexual Abuse: High Treason in the Kingdom of God
This week, another story broke about a pastor who sexually abused a church member. That sentence seems accurate almost every week. Ministerial sexual abuse in an unfortunate constant in 2019’s headlines.
As each story that breaks, the same responses multiply. Some, understandably, see such abuse as permanently disqualifying. A man who has used the office of pastor to manipulate one under his care for sexual pleasure may never fill the office again. Others question why these reports matter—especially when the abuse took place “so long ago.” Should what a man did as a 22-year-old pastor impact his eligibility to hold the office one, two, or three decades later?
At the heart of this question are two matters: the nature of sex and the nature of the church. Continue reading “Ministerial Sexual Abuse: High Treason in the Kingdom of God”