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Showing posts from January, 2021

The Quiet Strength of the Small Church

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by Bart Denny “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” — Revelation 3:8 (NIV) I have wrestled with a quiet burden that many pastors know all too well—even if they rarely say it out loud. If I’m doing this right… shouldn’t the church be exploding in growth? I’ve poured myself into small congregations with love, prayer, and the Word—only to measure progress in single digits, not surging crowds. For a long time, I wondered if that meant I was failing. But slowly, God has reoriented my heart. He’s shown me that the small churches I’ve pastored aren’t signs of weakness—they’re signs of His unique calling on my life. The roles I’ve held, the communities I’ve served, the saints I’ve shepherded—they aren’t consolation prizes. They’re my assignment from God Himself. And if you’re serving or worshiping in a small church, you need to hear this clearly: You are not less-than. You are not broken. You are not abnormal. You are ess...

Pastoral Leadership and an Ethic of Artificial Human Intelligence Enhancement

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A paper from a class: Ethics in Christian Ministry Leadership and Education (CLED 815), Liberty University, Rawlings School of Divinity by Bart L. Denny, Th.M. December 14, 2020 You might find this a strange article, but I believe pastoral leaders will soon have to deal with the possibilities explored here not as science fiction, but as a medical reality our people are considering. Cybernetics—the melding of electronic and computer systems with the human nervous system—seems to hold the genuine possibility of healing diseases with a neurological basis.   However, many futurists dream of far more than the restoration of normal functioning; they see a human race on the cusp of forcing its own “evolution,” with the melding of the human mind and artificially intelligent computer systems. The desired result is a cybernetic transhuman, with intelligence far beyond normal human cognition and perhaps even the ability to attain immortality. Such an eventuality smacks of humanity’s desire to...