Why Church? The Secret of Life

Why Church? God’s Groups – What Is The Secret Of Life? Love is the secret of life. Not the physical jump into bed at the first opportunity kind of love shown in movies and TV shows. Not the love of … Continue reading →

Churches Please Don’t Begin In Person Worship Yet

Greetings Fellow Dunkers The president of the United States has no authority over state governors about what organizations and businesses, including churches, can stay open or closed. How useful a congregation is depends not on any secular authority but on … Continue reading →

Why Church? No One Should Be Alone

Why Church: God’s Groups – No One Should Be Alone No one should be alone, but many are. Without God’s presence in our lives we walk alone no matter how many friends, no matter if we are married or single, … Continue reading →

Why Church? Because God Works In Groups!

Greetings fellow Dunkers. This is the second in a series of blogs about the importance of church as a group in people’s lives. As always you are welcome to use it in your own ministry as may prove helpful. This … Continue reading →

Why Church – The Group Is The Thing

Why Church? Because throughout our history humanity’s advancement has depended on our excellence in group organization. Groups are the vehicles by which we have traveled to dominance on planet earth. When I was pastor of the now defunct Rocky Ford … Continue reading →

Forbearing

“For bearing (carrying) actively,” admittedly a disjointed definition of the word forbearance. Although we don’t hear the word often these days “forbearance” has a central place in the Dunker tradition of Christian living. Forbearance does not mean agreeing with anything … Continue reading →

Church The Connection Place

Church is the connection place. You probably have heard that before but it’s no less true now. In fact, connecting is pretty much the reason that Christian congregations exist. The church should be a place where people learn and practice … Continue reading →

Leading Change In The Church

The following is a book report on John P. Kotter’s business classic Leading Change. In addition to Kotter’s information I have added notes about my own personal experience in turning congregations towards growth as well as provided some excerpts from … Continue reading →

Our Church Needs To Focus On Relating To Eacth Other

First, let me remind you of my offering that the best vital and compelling vision for firing up we Dunkers should be focused on our congregations being places that teach and practice how to live in good personal relationships with … Continue reading →

How About A Vital Vision For Fullfilling Interpersonal Relationships?

Now that we Church of the Brethren Dunkers are on a quest for a compelling vision that will bring new life into our denomination I want to do what I can to help the process along. For those who may … Continue reading →

ARE WE CHILDREN’S MILK BRETHREN?

1 Corinthians 3 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) On Divisions in the Corinthian Church 3 And so, brothers and sisters,[a] I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. … Continue reading →

FACEBOOK REFUSES TO FOLLOW OWN STANDARDS WITH PORNOGRAPHIC JESUS DRAWING

For about a month now I have been trying to get Facebook to ban use of a pornographic drawing of Jesus in the Facebook group “Christian Contradictions And Questions They Can’t Logically Answer.’ Which I was a member of before … Continue reading →

God’s Movie Of Your Life

Did you know that every Hollywood movie tells basically the same story over and over again no matter if the film is a comedy, adventure, drama, superhero, or whatever movie? Would screenwriters Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, authors of … Continue reading →

The War God Who Wasn’t

Christianity owes God an apology. We have slandered God upright and sideways at least since the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the favored religion of his empire. Part of the bargain for gaining official status as the religion of Roman … Continue reading →

Churches Have Something To Share – Better Relationships And Happier LIves

I been harping on this for a couple of years, but now even more evidence that the secret to the good life is good relationships with others, especially with those we care most about. So churches, wake up and realize … Continue reading →

The Hard Times Americans Forget

This article is a worthwhile read. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-hard-times-americans-forget/2016/03/01/c00d17de-dfc5-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Seeing Clearly Through 2016

Dear Dunker brothers and sisters. I am going to tell you a mystery. The genesis of our Brethren faith comes from experiencing our lives through the organizing principle that we are a people who live through right relationships powered by … Continue reading →

Our Mundane God

God only seems to operate by the mundane or the miraculous. At least those are the ways we experience God. What we often fail to appreciate I think, is that God uses the mundane to produce the miraculous far more … Continue reading →

Religion Works part two

In my last post I suggested that the key to vitality in the Christian faith is the belief that religion is real and that it works. At first, I know that this sounds silly obvious to most believers, but, be … Continue reading →

Religion Really Works

CORRECTION: A few minutes back I received a Facebook message from said nephew, mentioned below, and I misunderstand the satirical tone of his post on the Bieber report. In a return post I informed him that as a retired pastor … Continue reading →