Barnabas File

One of my favorite writers on the church and faith in the 21 st century is Tom Ehrich.   In a recent post in his On the Road series, Ehrich wrote this: "The longer I study Scripture, wrestle with ethical issues, write about God, and pray to God, the more I realize that God is a wild one. Not the least predictable or controllable. Not the steady rock I have wanted God to be, but a wild-flowing stream that carries me along to the life God wants me to live. Sometimes I cling to a passing tree, or make landfall and think I have arrived, or buy a big boat to master the current. But the river flows on, and all of my efforts to make it manageable and pleasant don't deter God from doing what God wants to do." These prophetic words speak to me as an individual as a member of the body of Christ. I discovered several years ago that God will not allow me to become comfortable.   In my late forties and early fifties, I experienced what I refer to as “the decade from H...

(This blog originally appeared on August 31, 2011.  Jobs passed away five weeks later.  This is reposted on the occasion of his birthday--February 24.  There is much to admire as well as regret about his life, but his influence on our culture is undeniable.) Unless you have been on a mission trip to Mongolia or experiencing power failures from hurricanes, earthquakes, or tornadoes, you have heard that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple due to health issues.   Many articles extol his virtues as a visionary and speculate on the future of one of the world’s richest companies with his leadership.   There will undoubtedly be a new round of books on “The Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs.” I am a late convert to the Apple faith.   I began to give in a bit when I purchased an iPod several years ago and enjoyed its flexibility and portability.   The iPad may have pushed me over the edge.   A generous donor recently provided the funds to p...

I was serving as interim pastor of a small congregation and working with their search committee as they sought a new pastor.   The committee asked me to make some contacts related to one particular candidate.   I made several phone calls and discovered a disturbing pattern.   The pastor in question had a reputation of borrowing money from lay leaders in a congregation and then moving on, failing to repay the indebtedness.   Although the candidate was an effective preacher and seemed to have pastoral ministry skills, this raised some red flags for me and the search committee when they received my report. This is one of those ethical areas that are rarely touched in seminary or when groups of ministers gather to talk.   There are certain boundary issues—such as money, relationships, and time management—that are often overlooked in ministerial training. Although some denominational groups have codes of ethics that address such concerns, Baptists—being co...

Many challenges face the church today but one of the most significant is our ability to live, function, and minister in a world that is increasingly diverse.   Perhaps the issue is not that the world is more diverse but that this diversity has become part of our everyday lives. More than ever before the world is at our doorstep.   This is due not only to the internet and 24/7 news, but the increasing mobility of people.   Not only is business routinely conducted across borders but individuals and families from many cultures now live in our communities. When I attend a school function for one of my grandchildren, I see not only people of European ancestry and African-Americans, but Hispanics and Asians from various countries. How will the church address this diversity while pursuing its mission? First, each congregation must become aware of the challenge of interacting with people “who are not like us.”   This past Sunday my pastor, Noel Schoonmaker, ...

I was spoiled early in my ministry by a supervisor who accepted failure as part of the learning process. I was sharing with him some of the things that I had tried that did not work and he responded, “Keep on trying until you find out what works.” As a result of this encouragement, I embrace the quote by Dale Turner:   “To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded.” We experience failure in life.   We fail in relationships, in projects, in achieving goals, and many other ways too numerous to count.   Not to recognize our failures is a failure in itself!   The only way to avoid failure is to do nothing.   The key to moving forward is deciding what we will do with failure.   There are several possibilities. First, we can ignore failure.   We can go blithely on our way.    In so doing, we learn nothing and keep repeating the same mistakes with the same results.   A...