Pastors, You Don’t Have to Be an Expert on Everything
Every once and a while I read a book that provides one of those genuine (and rare) light bulb moments. It’s not so much that the book changes the way you think about the world, but rather it explains why the world works the way it does. And in our ever-more-confusing world, that can be a game-changer.
One such book is Tom Nichol’s, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (Oxford, 2018).
Everyone’s An Expert
In this intriguing volume, Nichols catalogs how technological changes have provided the average person with unprecedented access to information. Through the internet, blogs, and the 24-hour news cycle, … Continue reading...
New Book: 5 Things to Pray For Your Spouse
“When are the two of you going to write a book together?”
My wife Melissa and I have been asked this question many times over the last few years. I’m excited to announce that we have finally written a book together! On Feb 1st, we release: 5 Things to Pray for Your Spouse: Prayers that Change and Strengthen Your Marriage.
Our new book is part of the “5 Things” series with the Good Book Company. Melissa herself already published an earlier installment in the series: 5 Things to Pray for Your Kids.
Continue reading... 
In 5 Things to Pray For Your Spouse, we have created a guide for daily …
Your Greatest Doubts and Fears: A New Sunday School Class
“Don’t forget in the dark what you learned in the light.” –C.S. Lewis
These words by C.S. Lewis remind us that the Christian life can be filled with dark times—doubts, fears, and questions about all sorts of things. What if Christianity is wrong and we are deceiving ourselves? Why would God allow a world so filled with evil? If Christianity is true then why are there so many intelligent people who reject it? If God is real then why do so many Christians seem caught in sin? How can I say Jesus is the only way to heaven and not be arrogant and intolerant?
These are precisely the kinds of … Continue reading...
Is Deconstruction the Same as Deconversion? A Few Reflections on Reforming the Church
The last few years have been a rough stretch for the evangelical church. Plagued not only by a complex and intractable health crisis with COVID, the church has also faced an increasingly polarized cultural-political environment as well as numerous internal scandals involving abusive leadership.
Perhaps it is not surprising that this same period of time has seen a rise in so-called cases of deconversion—people who once claimed to be fairly run-of-the-mill evangelicals but then, for whatever reasons, decided this was not the life for them. And they walked away from the faith.
The high-profile cases of deconversion stories are well known: Rob Bell, Rhett and Link, Joshua Harris, etc. … Continue reading...
@RTSCharlotte 2021 Year in Review
Well, it’s New Year’s Eve. And I would imagine that most of us are more than ready to get 2021 in the rear-view mirror. We all thought it would be different than 2020, but, alas, it was not to be. Not only is COVID back with a vengeance, but the year has been filled with it’s share of division and in-fighting, both politically and in the church.
But even with these challenges, there were a number of things to be thankful for in 2021. Several years ago, I began a new tradition of the RTS Charlotte “year in review” where I recap how God has blessed our ministry over the … Continue reading...