HARMLESS THOUGHTS

Easily one of the top books I have read in 2013,  Love Into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual and the Church  by Peter Hubbard addresses a topic that is both highly relevant in our society and yet inadequately (and often inappropriately) taught in our churches.  If you are seeking guidance on how a Biblically grounded, Gospel oriented Christian ought to understand and interact with homosexuality, then this is the book for you. Near the beginning of the book, Peter Hubbard addresses what I feel can be one of the most challenging problems with how the church has interacted with this topic.  He puts it this way: I have spoken to scores of men and women who have spent years worshipping in church while battling alone with SSA (Same Sex Attraction). They were terrified to tell anyone, and convinced that if other Christians knew their secret, they would be tagged and discarded. Imagine the trauma of believing that your struggle is unlike any other sin. The preacher make...

A couple of weeks ago a lady in my church, who has been at the church since I was about five years old, told me she was reading a book that she thought I might enjoy.  A couple of days later she handed me the book and told me that I could borrow it if I wanted.  The book was called, Who Stole My Church?  by Gordon MacDonald.  The subtitle is, What to Do When the Church You Love Tries to Enter the 21st Century .  It was feeling a bit too close to home, needless to say, I was a tad nervous. But then I started reading the book. Here is the premise of the book:  Gordon MacDonald, a real-life Pastor and the author of this book, decided to tackle the challenging topic of Church Change and Church Reinvention by writing a story.  He uses himself and his wife as real characters in the book, but the church and the other characters are all fictional.  He then begins to break down the different topics commonly associated with change through the form of di...