Posts by Jeff Straub
Small Church, Small Town Ministry … So Many Opportunities! So Many Blessings!
Last week, I wrote about the joys and challenges of small church, rural ministry. To be sure, these kinds of ministries come with a unique set of challenges. But they also come with many wonderful opportunities. I mentioned my first ministry among the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) in Manitoba. My family lived in a Métis community of…
Read MoreThe Joys and Challenges of Small Church Ministry
Recently, I had the joy of ministering to a church in a community in southern Minnesota whose posted population was 1322. The village is on a secondary road that runs north to south and is located about forty miles from the third largest city in Minnesota, Rochester. Rochester itself boasts a population of less than…
Read MoreTogether for the Gospel? Thoughts on Baptism and Christian Unity
Recently Joe Rigney, president of Bethlehem Baptist Seminary, argued that infant baptism need not be an absolute bar for membership in a Baptist church. If Christians of various persuasions can get “together for the Gospel,” why can’t they get together in the church? By Rigney’s thinking and in the spirit of catholicity they can if…
Read MoreGrieving for Ukraine
I have been to the Ukraine twice, teaching students and preaching in churches. I have walked the streets of Kyiv, broken bread with believers there and elsewhere in the Ukraine, witnessed the work of God in the country and seen its beauty. I stood on the banks of the Dnieper River where Vladimir the Great…
Read MoreChanges over the Past Forty Years of Ministry – Has This All Been Worth It?
It’s been forty-three years since I graduated from Bible school, and forty years since I began my formal ministry. I was ordained in Madison, Indiana, in the fall of 1981, shortly before my wife and I moved to Manitoba to begin our first ministry. Forty years! It hardly seems possible. Forty years ago, I was…
Read MoreFundamentalism and the SBC
Still More Reflections of the 2021 SBC Convention [Note: You can find Dr. Straub’s two previous reflections on the 2021 SBC meeting here and here. Ed.] In the aftermath of the Nashville meeting of a few weeks ago, SBC pundits are still musing on the successes and failures of the 2021 convention. On the plus…
Read MoreOrdination of Women: Some Issues Just Won’t Go Away
Some issues in theological discourse just never go away. Supporters on one side or the other are committed and tenacious in the articulation and defense of their views. Part of the tenacity arises from the belief that the stakes are just too high to surrender. The fight must continue no matter the consequences, or even…
Read MoreA Letter to My Brothers
Last Thursday was a very sad day for the evangelical church. The long-awaited report on the sexual misconduct of Ravi Zacharias was released confirming the worst sort of duplicity and moral failure. For years, Ravi, a well-known international Christian apologist, led a double life. While he presented himself as a pious, Christ-loving disciple, he was…
Read MoreCOVID-19 and the Struggle for Worship in Canada
The world is still in the midst of a global pandemic of significant proportions. I say significant for the COVID pandemic because this is not as serious a global problem as similar events that have been faced in human history. The Spanish flu killed an estimated fifty million people worldwide in 1918-1920 and maybe as…
Read MoreSinging in Worship . . . Should We or Shouldn’t We? What’s a Stake?
Los Angeles continues to try to force Grace Community Church to cease and desist its corporate worship. Among the latest efforts to pressure the church is the cancellation of a parking lot lease that Grace has had in place with the county since 1975! As of October 1, the church is liable to have property…
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