Browsing: church

One panel, moderated by Dr. Dennis Horton, director of ministry guidance, focused on the local church and its role in culture and missions. The panel featured speakers from Christar, Ethnos 360, Casas por Cristo and Wycliffe Bible Translators. Panelists answered questions about culture’s influence on ministry, the multicultural nature of the Gospel and advice for students interested in short-term or long-term missions.

Every Monday night, a gathering of Baylor students can be found singing, worshiping and declaring the same message: They’d “rather have Jesus.” Now, what began as a small group of Baylor students leading one another in prayer and worship is returning to its roots of being student-led.

Lent is not a second chance for the New Year’s resolutions you failed to stick to in January. Lent is not about (briefly) staying off Instagram or (briefly) depriving yourself of M&Ms or (briefly) avoiding the Whataburger drive-thru. Lent is not a secular season — stop making it one.

“If you do not know the poor you can’t serve the poor, if you’re not feeding the poor you’re not feeding Christ [and] if you’re not clothing the poor, you’re not clothing Christ,” Riemer said. “This work is very much central to the Christian faith experience and without it I don’t know the degree to which you can fully and authentically know God and who he’s calling you to be.”

Our faith is an opportunity to transcend this world and get a glimpse of the heavenly banquet that awaits us. But to make use of this opportunity, we must quiet ourselves in peaceful contemplation. We must remember that Christians have been practicing for over 2,000 years, and that many traditional hymns are rooted in this rich, longstanding history. We must abandon contemporary frivolities that disrupt sacred celebrations.

In 1963, preaching at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I am ashamed and appalled that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in Christian America.”
Five decades later, Sunday mornings remain a highly segregated hour. Roughly 5 percent of the nation’s churches are racially integrated, and half of them are in the midst of transitioning to either all-white or all-black, according to CNN.

Saturday night is full of debauchery — the fake ID gets her drinks at the restaurant. The drinks get the crude words flowing with his friends. His drunken alter-ego gives him confidence to hit on the girl at the bar and take her home. They wake up with a hangover, maybe even still drunk, but two hours later, they are on the fifth row of the Sunday service.

In the middle of a nation adjusting to a new set of social laws, church is meant to be a place where believers can come together to worship.

“Race is still a very powerful factor,” Dr. James SoRelle professor of African-American history said. “I don’t think we live in a post-racial world.”

Lecturer of sociology Dr. Christopher Pieper said deficits in diversity of churches, especially in the south, can be seen today.