Church – Broken & Saved

Nobody Cares About God’s Holiness

August 5, 2025August 5, 2025VinceLeave a comment

We’d almost made it out the door of church on Sunday when I was pulled into a conversation by a friend who was engaged in a discussion with someone I didn’t know. The discussion concerned a “short answer” for those whose response to “God loves us” was to ask where God’s love was when He told Israel to kill all the Canaanites (as one example). According to the person asking the question, this is a common attack point on TikTok, and he wanted a quick comeback that was also TikTok-sized (short).

Making Atheists

April 20, 2021Vince1 Comment

In a post last week, Russell Moore talks a bit about the recent Gallup poll that shows, for the first time ever, less than half those surveyed belong to a church. But he spends more time talking about the ways the Church is responsible for the decline.

Bible Study / Church / Spiritual Journey

April Fools Group

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021VinceLeave a comment

Early in the year 2020 BC, our pastor was preaching on the importance of community, of being in a small group, etc. He talked about the things a lifegroup (the official 121 nomenclature for small groups) did together, starting with being in the Word together. And then, as he is wont to do, he went off-script. “Maybe you’re uncomfortable studying the Bible, maybe you’d like to learn to study the Bible. We could start a How to Study Your Bible life group!” And then he went on with the rest of his sermon.

Knowing how these things went, I checked in at the office after the service.

Church / Spiritual Journey

The Closer

February 2, 2021Vince1 Comment

I’ve told this story probably a hundred times over the years. If you’re one of the ones I’ve told it to, well, sometimes real life has reruns, too. This one will be better than all those Saved the Bells. But not better than Batman, because what could be better than a Batman rerun?

In the summer of twenty-five years ago, the XO of our church at the time asked me to breakfast. Just like in the military, an XO at a church is the person who makes the things happen that the captain/pastor dreams up in his head. If you were to look up XO in the dictionary, this guy’s picture is who would be staring you in the face.

Church / Family

Keeping

July 18, 2020Vince2 Comments

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, before the term “social distancing” had been invented, when people in masks robbed banks, when the year looked like a countdown instead of an eye chart, I wrote about our church’s twentieth anniversary, and specifically about the man who welcomed us when we started going there.

Church

Menace to Society

December 21, 2019December 21, 2019VinceLeave a comment

Bernadette Fox finds life, and people, stressful. She hires a concierge service from India so she doesn’t have to deal with the day-to-day details of being a wife and mother. She needs a new extra-strength prescription to handle the possibility of being on a cruise ship, even a small one with only 150 people on board. She and her husband and daughter live in an abandoned Catholic school with vines growing up through the floor. In short, Bernadette is a mess.

And the mess keeps growing. It turns out the concierge service is actually an identity theft ring, and Bernadette has given them the keys to the kingdom, and the bank accounts.