New England news & perspectives
Check back often for fresh articles, or click below to receive a monthly summary of articles by email.
Why study and obey Scripture?
We need to study, know and obey the Word of God. We can’t underestimate the importance of this issue in our Christian lives.
Encouraging church leaders
Church leaders often find themselves in a bitter and lonely place. When I stepped into ministry leadership, I feared the high and even unrealistic expectations people would place on both me and my family. I had been through an intense personal struggle to understand and finally accept God’s call upon my life. As a pastor’s kid, I had in-house experience of how people can be so insensitive to the love and care of the shepherd who God has placed in their lives.
What the Northeast needs from missionaries
There is a constant call within the northeastern part of the United States for laborers to move to the area and join the battle to see the region re-awakened to the power of the Gospel. Church planting ministries regularly recruit and promote vision tours in an attempt to get more missionaries to the shores of the proverbial Babylon that is the New England states, plus New York and perhaps New Jersey.
The procrastinator’s gospel
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. When it comes to procrastination, I find myself on the struggle bus. It goes a little something like this:
Milk vs. solid food
How do you know when you or your church needs milk? Or if it’s time to move on to solid food? The answer to that question is found in the overall context of Hebrews.
Praise God in the morning
Your alarm goes off in the morning, rousing you from your sleep. What is your first response? If you’re like me, you may check Facebook, look at missed emails, respond to text messages or read the news. You do all of this before you even get out of the bed.
From the very moment of waking up, the world is already fighting for our attention. And in this moment we often neglect to look to God in worship and praise. Why am I passionate about this?
The power of an invitation
It happened as I was on my way to play a board game with friends from church. Someone in my car asked, “So, Molly, why are you going to this?”
Caught off-guard, my eyes switched back and forth between the road ahead and the rearview mirror as I tried to gauge the sincerity of the question. After quick deliberation in silence, I said, “Well, I guess the first reason would be that I was invited.”
Ethnic churches and the challenge of reaching second-generation Americans
Approximately 50% of BCNE churches in Greater Boston are ethnic churches. And God is at work among them. In fact, some of the largest churches in Boston happen to be Asian, African-American and Haitian! Very impressively, most of the pioneers who planted these churches did so without the benefits of special training, financial support or church partnerships that many church planters receive today. Ethnic churches in Greater Boston are robust, and continue to multiply. I love attending the worship gatherings and enjoy having fellowship with the gifted pastors who lead these churches. Yet there is a unique, life-or-death challenge that virtually every ethnic church pastor faces: the challenge of reaching second-generation Americans.
Six ways to cultivate prayer in your small group
Small groups are very important to the health of any church. They are places for individuals to grow in their faith and to build relationships with others. One important aspect of any small group should be prayer, but many small group leaders share their concern that prayer time sometimes becomes stale.
Fighting the wrong battles
In our culture – Western culture – we fight way too much. If you consider the fact that we fight about our politics, at our jobs, within our families and within our communities, it seems that we are addicted to fighting.
Mud wrestling
You know those gentle proddings from Jesus – the kind that easily guide you along life’s journey, leading you away from one thing and toward another? Apparently those don't work on me. I seem to need the spiritual equivalent of a two-by-four upside the head to get my attention.
Reflections on the death of a loved one
My family recently suffered the loss of my mother-in-law, a wonderful woman of God who was taken from us rather suddenly by pancreatic cancer.
My mind turns to the story of the raising of Lazarus in John 11 when Jesus Himself lost someone He loved (John 11:3, 5), and I ponder three questions:
A white man’s religion?
Ministry in the urban context comes with its own set of challenges. Among them are the objections to Christianity that run deep within inner-city communities of color. As I pastor in a neighborhood made up largely of ethnic minorities, it is not uncommon for me to hear someone dismiss the Christian faith purely because it is perceived to be “the white man’s religion, meant to oppress ethnic minorities.” It is important to note that this characterization of Christianity is not completely unfounded.
The case for multiethnic churches in Boston
For 10 years I served as the pastor of a church in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. It was an historic church, located in an affluent neighborhood where military families and federal employees lived. And it was almost completely Caucasian. The neighborhood, however, gradually changed. Different ethnic groups moved in and church attendance began to decline.
The Christian outcast
When we read the Bible we hear about Jesus loving the outcasts of society. When we think of outcasts today, we often think of those outside the church: the homeless, drug addicted or poor people. But I want to talk to you today about the outcasts inside the church – those in the Christian community that feel judged, unwelcomed and looked down upon. I have all too often felt this way as soon as I mention that I am divorced.