Opinion

A common temptation in reading the Bible is to put ourselves in the sandals of the good guys. While it’s good to be inspired by the faithful characters in the Bible, if that’s the only roles we see ourselves playing, we miss a more accurate picture of our own faults and struggles.

The loans that are a part of the CARES Act present a decision for each individual pastor, priest, rabbi, imam, or other religious leader and their congregations to decide: Are they going to accept and rely on government aid to continue their ministry?

As states issue stay-at-home orders and bar gatherings, some evangelical Christians — those who believe they are a persecuted minority — have become convinced that religious freedom is under attack. The war on Christmas is now the war on Easter.

This week, a pastor sat in a chair at the local park with a sign that read, “How Can I Pray for You, Today?” Over the next couple hours, he had a couple of dozen people come through seeking prayer or just looking for a connection.

How does a technologically-challenged person like me shift from closing the church for meetings and — in one week — go to online streaming? Very carefully.

There’s a famous line in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where a character laments that because of the White Witch’s rule over the land of Narnia, it is “always Winter but never Christmas.” But, what about a Spring without Easter?

One of the challenges we face in understanding God’s sovereignty is that God may allow certain things to happen that we do not understand, and we must reckon with how these things can become challenges to our faith and understanding of God’s power.

By the time you read this, an area in Newton County, Arkansas, once known as Dogpatch USA, will have been auctioned off to the highest bidder. After years of weather damage and decay, the former amusement park will be sold off for what it is — a property in horrific disrepair.

In the disorienting last few days, it feels our society is reading Exodus 32 backward. We’ve started with a plague, moved to inappropriate revelry, and now seek to worship a statue of a cow.

After worship on Sunday, March 15, our church family discussed what we would do next. For more than three years we had had Sunday lunch together, but there was a sense this would be the last time for a while. After a few days of prayerful consideration we decided to try a “drive-in” worship service. Everyone would remain in their vehicles on the church parking lot while I led worship and preached from the front steps.