Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, we had a refresher about Beach Reach. That’s the annual Spring Break missionary trip sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Every year, hundreds of young SBC-lings converge on a beach in Texas to offer various free services to partying college students. Of course, they Read more
Yesterday, we checked out the illustrious career of George Barna. He makes a good living by telling Christians whatever makes them open their wallets for him. And what works best to open wallets? Inducing fear and dread in his target audience. Now, let’s check out how George Barna used his style of marketing most recently. He’s doing his best to make his TRUE CHRISTIAN™ marks pony up the bills by making them scared that a new fake kind of Christianity is taking over America. Today, let’s see how he does it — and if it’ll work.
For a bit now, we’ve been looking at an evangelical podcast called Gospelbound. In the specific episode we listened to, two Christians outlined their strategies for reversing their religion’s decline. Interestingly, both strategies reveal the speakers’ distinct lack of faith in their own religious claims. Today, let’s marvel at their accidental reveal — and ask what their strategies might look like if they actually believed that anything they said about their god was true.
Today, let’s look at how evangelism functions as a form of disrespect, why it’s always been like that, and why evangelical leaders demand it anyway of their flocks.
Today, let’s examine Greg Stier’s first piece of advice to the tribe — and see how well it works with reality.
Hi and welcome back! We turn our attention now to Frank Peretti’s 1986 novel, This Present Darkness. In this installment, the finale continues to build. And that means that Peretti continues to move a bunch of plastic cut-outs shaped like people around on his gameboard to their rightful places. So far, Read more
Yesterday, we watched American Gospel: Christ Alone. In this 2018 documentary, Christians bicker and argue about exactly what ‘the gospel’ even means. The documentary makers decide ultimately that it means not prosperity gospel. Today, let me show you this documentary — and we’ll see how well they make their case.
In Unchurched, Lee Strobel sought to teach his tribe about those strange space aliens who weren’t part of church culture. More than that, even, he claimed to offer the tribe an ‘action plan’ for persuading those space aliens to join their churches. Today, let’s see exactly what this ‘action plan’ involves — and then consider its effectiveness.
Hi and welcome back! Today, our presses got stopped cold by some breaking news from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). It seems that last year, they suffered their single worst drop in membership in a century! The news follows the denomination’s struggles with money, an ongoing sex abuse scandal, constant Read more
Whether those connections are bound to us by blood or by choice, they’re what matter most. Today, we celebrate Mother’s Day — and the real love that the day represents.