stories on Churches

A classic mission dilemma: The chief of a village in a remote area, whose people practice a tribal religion, becomes a believer and declares the whole village is now Christian. Most of the leading m...

One Sunday morning at a Colorado prison, a group of inmates was being led to the Catholic and Protestant chapels. One young man, however, kept walking past them and headed toward the main gate. A guar...

There is a story of a public sinner who was excommunicated and forbidden from entering the church, He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "W...

Two men were marooned on a deserted island. One man was pacing back and forth, terrified that no one would ever rescue them. The other man was sitting against a tree, shading himself comfortably and r...

In downtown Helsinki, there is a small building called the Kamppi Chapel. It’s not a place of worship, strictly speaking, but it’s as quiet as any cathedral. Quieter, in fact, because there are no ech...

A decade ago I spent an unforgettable week in the Galapagos Islands. This archipelago of islands off the coast of Ecuador hasn’t changed much since Charles Darwin sailed there on the HMS Beagle in Dec...

A decade ago I spent an unforgettable week in the Galapagos Islands. This archipelago of islands off the coast of Ecuador hasn’t changed much since Charles Darwin sailed there on trheHMS Beagle in Dec...

A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ...

I was in London browsing one of the ubiquitous British tabloids and an advertisement for a new health club grabbed my attention. The picture was of a magnificent gothic church sanctuary that had been ...

Fred Allen (1984-1956) was a famous American comedian, writer, and radio star. When fellow comic Jack Parr first met Allen, he burst out, “You are my God!” Allen replied with the characteristic wit of...

We were recently with a collection of pastors in San Diego and were asked to share about our common call to peacemaking. Fully aware of the posturing and isolation of many of these churches, we found ...

In 2009 I (Dave) gathered a group of twenty lead pastors in the Denver area so we could think, dream, and pray about how our churches might join forces to serve our community. We invited our local may...

Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he cal...

Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he cal...

I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w...

Reporters Alex Alston and James Dickerson tell a sad story about a church that sought to integrate its ranks: The Mississippi Delta was in a tizzy over rumors that blacks might show up at white church...

Reporters Alex Alston and James Dickerson tell a sad story about a church that sought to integrate its ranks: The Mississippi Delta was in a tizzy over rumors that blacks might show up at white church...

In his extremely helpful book, The Economics of Neighborly Love , Tom Nelson argues that the church has an important part to play in helping Christians understand the value and place of economics i...

Now of course, none of us is perfect, and all of us fail in all kinds of ways. That is why we often protect ourselves a bit when we say things like, “Don’t look at me, or don’t look at Christians; loo...

There's an intriguing story about Oliver Cromwell, who, while serving as Lord Protector of England, faced a tricky cash flow issue. When he found himself short on precious metal for coins, he sent...

In this first-person memoir, Pastor Peter Chin shares a story that most pastors can probably relate to, the reality vs the expectation of a church-planter or even the pastor of an established church: ...

Susanne Wesley, wife of Pastor Samuel Wesley, lived in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s She gave birth to nineteen children, ten survived. Everyday she would take her Bible to her favorite chair and...

In the excellent book, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes , Brandon J. O’Brien shares a helpful illustration of how different churches deal with alcohol very differently: When I (Brandon) w...

In this short excerpt, professor and pastor Tod Bolsinger describes how the changing world of ministry (in the West) has led some pastors to simply give up trying: About twelve years ago, I heard a ...

An old joke can sum up the failure nicely: It’s said that Thomas Aquinas was once brought into a great city where he was to meet the pope. He saw huge churches, clerics in ornate garb, and great armie...

While visiting a city in South America, the British Anglican pastor John Stott learned about a group of young Christian students who had become disillusioned with organized religion and formal churche...

One of my favorite stories is of John of Kronstadt. He was the Nineteenth Century Russian Orthodox priest at the time when alcohol abuse was rampant. None of the priests ventured out of their churches...

Recently we found ourselves around a table with a team of faith leaders from an influential Midwestern church. Their restlessness was palpable. “Peace has been one of our core values for years,” they ...

In 1947, budding theologian Carl F. H. Henry wrote a short book titled The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. In it he surveys the American fundamentalist movement’s engagement with the most ...

Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University and half the namesake of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, was an American minister who began his ministry in 1880. While he wrote and preached countle...