When Civility Fails: A Pastor’s Response to Violence, Rage, and the Hard Work of Truth

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  by Bart L. Denny, Ph.D. Introduction — Why I must speak I have been reflecting on recent events in our nation and wrestling with how best to speak into them. As a follower of Jesus Christ and as a pastor, I believe my calling is to shed more light than heat in times of turmoil, and to offer the seasoning of grace in a culture that often tastes bitter. This will not be an exercise in soft-peddling. It will be frank, pastoral, and, where necessary, unflinching. Somewhere, this post will fail to address a consideration that it might have spoken to. I own it, saying in my defense only that space prevents my discussing everything that might be said on a subject and my views on it. Yet undoubtedly, this will cover more ground than most newspaper op-ed articles. Some readers may focus on one thing I say in the post without taking the entirety of what I said here in context. I pray you won't. But I resign myself to the likelihood some will. What I saw this past week I saw a young...
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Are you becoming a "consumer" church member?

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Today (July 25, 2022) Noted church consultant, Dr. Thom Rainer, writes today on Eleven Signs You Are Becoming a Church Consumer Instead of a Committed Church Member.  

When you look in the mirror, do any of the sign of the person in his article?

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All comments are moderated. I welcome respectful disagreement with my posts. Such discussions can cause me to consider perspectives I hadn't examined before. However, I also reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason. Why? Simple enough, this is MY blog, with MY thoughts, and I want to have a civil conversation that is, at all times, God-honoring in nature.

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by Bart L. Denny This article identifies a gap in the existing literature concerning leadership development in the context of local church revitalization. The article further suggests how existing leadership and leadership development theories could be applied to church revitalization and proposes further investigation and research areas. Observers and practitioners in the field of church revitalization unequivocally make the case that for a local church to reverse its decline, the pastor must develop a new generation of leaders (Clifton, 2016; Davis, 2017; Henard, 2021; Rainer, 2020; Stetzer & Dodson, 2021). The extant literature links the decline of churches to a lack of leadership and identifies renewed leadership as a vital component of church revitalization. However, little has been written, theoretically or practically, about the process of leadership development as it applies to local church revitalization. Moreover, little empirical verification supports church revitalizat...
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But some doubted...

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by Bart Denny “The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted.” —Matthew 28:16–17 (CSB) I try to be faithful to Scripture when I write or preach. I want to draw out lessons and apply them to daily life without saying more than the text itself says. My goal is to dig deep into God’s Word and share what I find—without putting words in God’s mouth. But I can’t help wondering—have you ever heard someone really focus on that last phrase in Matthew 28:17? “But some doubted.” In the very presence of the risen Christ—after seeing Him crucified, buried, and now alive—the disciples worshiped. And yet… some doubted. That moment has always fascinated me. We often say, “seeing is believing.” But here were disciples looking at Jesus with their own eyes, and still, something inside them wavered. Was it too good to be true? Could it really be Him? After everything they’d seen—the horror of the cross, the...
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