Unity

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You might be surprised to know that there were over 50,000 Christian denominations in the world in 2025. That number is expected to grow to 64,000 by 2050. What’s even more interesting is that the number of people becoming Christians is slowing down, but the number of new denominations is rising. What that means is that we are making new denominations at a faster rate than we’re making new disciples. You might think, “Oh, that’s an easy fix! We’ll just start new churches and make them non-denominational.” Unfortunately, I’ve got news for you. For at least the last 25 years, the growth rate of making new denominations is already faster than the rate of new Christian congregations. That means, quite often: New church, New denomination. And why not? You won’t have to answer to anyone, or be involved in a larger community.

It Is In Love That God is Revealed

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Lectionary Readings: Year A – Sixth Sunday in Easter One of the things my friends and I in college liked to do was to use fake church names that let people know that rather than going to church we instead decided to stay at home. You’ve probably heard a bunch of these. “Oh yeah, today…

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Heartburn?

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Have you ever gone to watch a motivational speaker? Someone who has in mind to help you bring out the very best of yourself, to help you achieve more than you are now, and to bring you up to your full potential? That was really more of a thing back a few decades ago, but if you went to a seminar like this, at the end of the seminar you probably found yourself excited about life, about the possibilities of what you could accomplish, or about how your life could improve.

I went to one of these seminars over twenty years ago, and during that time several of us overcame our fears – long held irrational fears – and we began to create new visions of our future, and answer the age old mysteries. In fact, at that seminar, I understood the answer to the mysterious question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It was a moment of grand dreams and visions of an exciting future, filled with plans that would improve my life.

What We Need, When We Need It

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Years ago, I was working with a youth group up in Washington, and there was one evening where I couldn’t attend the gathering. On that particular evening, one of the high school girls, who played volleyball, had hurt her knee quite badly. It was swollen, and she was limping around. At one point during the evening, I’m told, the pastor and the kids surrounded her and prayed for her. The youth pastor told me, “It was amazing. As we were praying, you could see the swelling go down, and afterward, she was able to walk without a limp. I’m still just shocked. It’s a miracle!”

And in response, I said, “That is amazing. That’s awesome.” And then I paused, and added, “I really wish I could have been there to see it for myself.” Translation: “Hmmm. Is this really true?” I’ll admit, I questioned that story a bit. Because, after all, “Seeing is believing,” as the saying goes. And in this case, I would really have liked to see it, rather than just taking people’s word for it.

The Death of God

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Lectionary Readings: Year A, Holy Week, Good Friday In 1883, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared “God is Dead.” You’ve probably heard the phrase thrown about when discussing atheism, because Nietzsche is saying that God is just a social construct used to justify all sorts of evil and violence. If you read his work, you…

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Blinded

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I know everyone is familiar with Superman, and his alter ego, Clark Kent. One of the late night television shows did a spoof on this once. Clark Kent is sitting at his desk at the Daily Planet, and he takes his glasses off to rub his eyes, and someone yells out, “Superman! Wow! When did you get here!” And Clark puts his glasses back on to look around for Superman, and the person goes, “Huh? Where did he go? He was just here!” Clark gets wise, and pulls his glasses off again, and the person yells, “Oh! There you are!” What follows is Clark Kent taking his glasses off and on, with people seeing Superman, and then suddenly blinded to his presence the moment Clark puts his glasses back on. They thought Clark kind of looked like that Superman guy, but obviously, Superman didn’t need glasses, so it couldn’t possibly be him. They doubted what was right in front of them, and so they were blinded to reality.

If God Gives You Something Good

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But, before we can continue with this storyline, we need to talk about the disciples, who come back at the most awkward moment. They’d been buying food, you see, and now when they show up, they have the shock of their lives. Just like the woman was shocked that Jesus would speak to her, the disciples are equally shocked. What on earth is Jesus doing, talking to this woman?