By Robert G. Rayburn. A very sympathetic expression was evident on the face of the Chancellor of the University of Missouri as he said to me, “Dr. Rayburn, I don’t want to discourage you unduly, but with such a small number of people in your denomination, I don’t think it is possible that you will be able to get enough support to make Covenant College a via
The Promise of the Cross
By Faythe A. Dobbs. The event of the cross is unique in that it is an accomplished fact; yet it bears a promise that was looked to with expectation before it happened, and now we also look to this promise. Promise, in one sense, is an agreement to do (or not do) something. Because of the cross and Christ’s work there, I can put my trust in Him.I agree to join in covenant relationship with Him. Promise, in another sense, means to give a basis for expectation. What can we expect as a result of the cross for our lives?
The word cross itself evokes thoughts of suffering and pain. During this time of year especially, we think of Christ on the cross. And when we hear the verse about bearing our own cross, it is hard to respond enthusiastically. But how many of us see the cross as a way to joy? Certainly Christ saw the cross as necessary to the attainment of joy. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus “who for the joy set before him endured the cross.”
How do I personally envision the cross? Is there promise in the cross for me, or is my focus on an event that happened 2,000 years ago with little eternal significance? Sometimes I can empathize with C. S. Lewis who, soon after his conversion, said, “The irrational dead weight of old skeptical habits, the spirit of this age and the cares of this world steal away all my lively feeling of the truth.” And I might add -joy! So what present promise does the cross hold for me? I have enough trouble just picturing the event itself. It is hard to put my twentieth-century self- with its sanitized, Americanized mindset – back to the scene at Cal
Building a Case in Prayer
By Richard Pratt. In ordinary conversa
A Response to the Woman’s Role
By D. Clair Davis. The Lord has told us that He has given pastors and teachers to His church to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. (Ephesians 4:12) Pastors don’t do all the work, but they train us to do it. Grasping that is the greatest single breakthrough in Christ’s church today. It started with the Church of South India in the 1920s. In the 1930s the Navigators taught us about discipling people to disciple others. (2 Timothy 2:2) By now, everywhere you go church bulletins say: “Ministers: every mem
Adjustment after the Death of a Spouse
Marriage tends to shape and form our whole identity. Before the death of my spouse, my whole life context was marriage. My spouse was involved in every aspect of my day. My decisions, plans and even idle notions – all were integrated into my married lifestyle.
Because anyone who is married becomes “com
Ministering to the Divorced
By Tom Jones. “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Alien Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.
So began Ralph Ellison’s remarkable novel about being black in America. So also might begin the personal story of countless men and women who have found themselves divorced in the church. They, like Ellison’s invisible man, have felt themselves to be unseen, unknown, untouched. In most cases the church is not guilty of deliberate or even conscious blindness toward the divorced, but the blindness has been real nonetheless. More than anything else this special blindness has come in the form of benign neglect. But benign or not, neglect feels painful to the neglected.
My own divorce is now sixteen years behind me; yet I can still feel the pain of the church’s neglect. Because the church did not reach out to me with meaningful ministry, my personal loneli