Featured Articles on Trans·formed This Week
Gollum Saves the Day. The king has returned. Big deal. The story isn’t even close to being over. Indeed, there’s an even larger army of orcs just sitting over in Mordor, waiting to be unleashed on the humans. And they haven’t even faced the evil overlord, Sauron, who is behind all of this in the first place. So the good news: the king is back. The bad news: you’re about to be eaten by an orc anyway.
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Let’s Face It. I recently took a test and failed miserably. Though I did not prepare for this test, I thought that I would have absolutely no problem with the questions asked. After all, this test was about a hot political issue and I had heard lots about this topic. The test I took determined my knowledge about same-sex desires and attraction. As it turns out, I knew precious little about this topic.
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Some Guidelines for Voting In This Political Season. For as long as I can remember, I have had a certain fascination with politics. A fair number in my church might assume I have a certain aversion, even a disinterest, as I often avoid the subject in my preaching. Some get downright angry with me for cautioning against placing too much hope in politicians or giving too much time to media voices that would suggest the hope of the world is Washington—when the hope of the world is a healthy, gospel centered church.
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Other Posts of Interest from around the Web
- A Word to Pastors…During Pastor Appreciation Month. My church leadership blog has given me access into the lives of hundreds of young pastors, many of them in smaller churches where they are one of a few, if not the only, staff members. I don’t see this as much in larger churches where there are more staff members to spread the workload, but in some smaller churches, many times the pastor is drowning. His spouse is drowning. His family suffers. They can’t keep up with the demands of the church. I never knew.
- Did Jesus Have a Wife, and Can We Trust the Bible? The world was all atwitter, both literally and figuratively, when the New York Times published Laurie Goodstein’s piece, “A Faded Piece of Papyrus Refers to Jesus’ Wife.” Goodstein claimed the document, smaller than a business card, confirmed a popular conspiracy regarding Jesus’ marital status.
- Failure, Not Success, Makes a Leader Great. You can’t help others if you are consumed with your own strength. You might inspire them with how perfect you make yourself out to be, but that really won’t help them. It will just make them try to be perfect like they think you are—and that will end up crushing them.
- Tracking Religious Trends Takes a Leap of Faith. Questions remain, however, about how to count population by religion, and how to define those who have no religion. Different surveys use different question wording and definitions, which, combined with the huge variety of beliefs and practices, complicate researchers’ work.
About Marc Cortez
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