New England news & perspectives
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The Pastor and Good Health
This year I turn 46 years old. While that may not be old, it does mean I feel the decline of age! In 2020, Covid affected me with long-term symptoms that are still not entirely gone. Two years ago, I tore my achilles tendon playing basketball with my son, and needed reattachment surgery. Recently, my lower back pain has been unrelenting (probably due to limping for two years!). Maintaining good health is not as easy as it used to be.
Developing a Church Strategy to Reach Gen Z
Does your church have a desire to reach the next generation but you’re not sure where to start? You are not alone. It is fairly common for churches to be overwhelmed at the thought of reaching students. In Vermont, we have been implementing strategies to reach unreached campuses through the local church.
Church Red Flags
Not all churches are equal, and not all ministries are the same. While some are healthy and vibrant, others are spiritually harmful. Here are some red flags to identify a church that is heading in the wrong direction, and how to take actions against them.
Haitian Leader Does “Whatever I Can to Bring the Gospel” to Migrants in Boston
The urban ministry that W. Ruben Exantus and the thirty Haitian pastors he serves has been anything but predictable in the last few years. The challenges they confront every day have been complicated by the influx of migrants arriving in Boston by the thousands.
What is the Church?
What is the church? To the readership of this blog, such a question might seem insultingly basic. Not so. It’s foundational. I am passionate about the revitalization of declining historic churches in New England. Answering this question will lead directly into another twin question, one that is the single watershed in whether a church will revitalize or continue in the throes of death.
New England Reportedly Is the “Only Region Where Southern Baptist Churches Are Growing Numerically”—BCNE Counts 33,664 Baptisms This Century
The “only region where Southern Baptist churches are growing numerically is in New England,” reported Lifeway Research in September 2023. The Baptist Churches of New England Annual Church Profile data for 2001-23 confirm that bold statement.
Seeds of Peace
Spring has arrived with its verdant call to shake off sleep and come alive, and many New Englanders head outside to the warming soil with joy. This is the time of year we naturally contemplate roots, shoots, and fruits. One of the most common problems that affects our culture is definitely a root issue: anxiety.
Make This Your Best Summer
We just turned the page on March and spring has begun! It is not too early to start planning for your summer ministries. We know that events in New England can be challenging but the summer is a great opportunity to make a difference in the lives of kids and families in your community. Summer presents the desire for families to find family friendly, low or no cost events to enjoy time together. This is a great opportunity to build relationships with the families in your area!
New England Youth “encounter God in new and fresh ways” through YEC retreat and Quest training
It’s never been easy to be a teenager and today it’s never been more challenging. More than 550 teens and their ministry leaders from 39 churches found solace from the pressures of life when they took part in the Youth Encountering Christ (YEC) retreat January 26-28 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and in the twenty-fifth annual Quest discipleship experiences.
A Certified Public Accountant Helps the Baptist Foundation Invest and Disburse Its Endowed Funds to Advance Gospel Witness Throughout New England
When Shaunna M. Varin was invited to join the Baptist Foundation of New England Board of Trustees, she agreed to serve because “I like the unity of purpose among the board members, who are seeking God’s will and discernment on how to be good stewards of the monies that have been entrusted to the foundation.”
BCNE Starts Multiplication Center to Cultivate a New Generation of Pastors and Leaders
A missiological initiative that started inauspiciously with a dream, will likely have a profound impact on the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) for years to come, according to Hal Haller, the Associate Executive Director, who was awakened in the middle of the night by a divinely inspired idea to multiply existing training options to cultivate a new generation of pastors and leaders.
Persevering as a Pastor
How do we persevere in pastoral ministry? Churches should want pastors who persevere till they go on to glory or retire – and even if retired, continue to serve in some capacity until they can no longer do so. As pastors, what can we do now to ensure we persevere to the end?
New England Churches at a Turning Point: Engaging the “Nones”
Across America, churches are struggling to engage younger generations. This trend is especially acute in New England, where less than 30% of adults under 30 now identify with a religion (Pew Research Center, 2015). As churches confront shrinking and aging congregations, they face a pivotal choice – reinvent ministry for the modern era, or risk fading relevance in one of America’s most proudly secular regions.
How Great Is That Darkness
Six hours ago I was squeezed into a small, white-washed stairway of stone. I think the headroom was less than five feet. My shoulders touched both side walls. And I was descending, round and round, inside a castle turret. The Bunratty Castle was last used in the late 1600’s by the O’Brien family in Ireland.
Grieving with Hope
Grief. I’m not sure that I ever really understood grief until the last few months. It is one of those emotions you can read about, study, or discuss, but can’t really understand until you personally experience it. After losing my wife to pancreatic cancer 7 months ago, I’m still coming to terms with what it means to grieve.
The Theology of Purple Dinosaurs
A pastor in Tennessee posted the following “proof” online that Barney the Purple Dinosaur is really the Antichrist. He explained that you first must start with the statement “cute purple dinosaur”. You then have to change every letter U in the phrase into the letter V, which is actually the proper Latin anyway. Then you have to take away all the letters in the sentence that are also Roman numerals. What you have left are the letters CVVLDIV. If you then convert those letters into Arabic numbers and subtract them from each other, you end up with the number 666, which is the sign of the Antichrist. There you have it, according to that pastor, positive proof that Barney the Purple Dinosaur is the Antichrist.
The Gift of Time
I have a big extended family. Both sets of grandparents had six kids, plus some adopted kids, and just about all of those kids had three or more kids, and so on. Family reunions were massive affairs. We are a family spread all over the globe (many are missionaries), and we are a family that likes to get together as frequently as possible.
Pastoring through an Election Year
This year no doubt will be filled with a perpetual barrage of politics. From Super Tuesday to November 5th, our church people will be bombarded with political ads, phone calls, news segments, and presidential debates. As pastors, how do we pastor through a year like this?
Wisdom Keeps Our Thinking Clear
A minister was using a flashlight as a visual aid to teach the children’s sermon one morning during church. He had filled the flashlight with little pieces of useless junk and of course the light would not turn on. As he took the junk out and inserted two batteries, he came to the climax of his story and declared “When we take the junk out of our lives and put Jesus in, then we become the Light of the World.” And with a grand flourish he flipped the button on the flashlight expecting it to come on. To his great shock, the light did not come on.
After Decades of Ministry, a Church-Planting Pastor Returns to Vermont to Grow a Rural Church and to Mentor Other Pastors
A former hippie, Robby Pitt was so inspired by God after reading a counterculture oral history, Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks, and Radicals Moved to Vermont (2018), that he moved last summer to the Green Mountain State—for a second time—to be a church-planting pastor.