Author: Andrew Unger
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Exceptions
Categories: UncategorizedThere is a phrase that my Type-A, rules-following personality simply hates to utter: “We CAN make an exception.” I loathe it. It is something I have to say after a deadline has come and gone for a retreat and someone wants to sign up two days before we leave. I want to say no. I…
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The Trouble with Conversion
Categories: UncategorizedThis post has made its way around facebook several times, and I figure that it is better to try and write a response with a (hopefully) concise blog post than to fill up everybody’s facebook comments with rambling stream-of-thought paragraphs. So here it goes: nitpicking For the most part, this blog has good points. Or,…
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The passages I’d rather not talk about
Categories: UncategorizedWhen I was in college, I had the general idea that there was no passage of scripture that I couldn’t interpret. After all, I was attending THE Moody Bible Institute. I was taught all the methods that I would need to look at any part of scripture, find relevant commentaries, do my research, and come…
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Youth Ministry at Thirty
Categories: UncategorizedWhen I was in college, I spent two summers interning under the same youth pastor. I learned a lot during those two 3 month periods, but there is one memory that particularly sticks out: one day, as he faced the complications that come with balancing the competing demands of his ministry and family life (as…
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The Bible, Privilege, and Property
Categories: UncategorizedI must admit, I am something of an idealist. My picture of an ideal world is one in which everybody works hard, makes enough money, and no one goes hungry. Wealth disparity saddens me; not because I despise the rich or think that they are bad for having made money, but because of the seeming…
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What IS a sermon anyway?
Categories: UncategorizedAll scripture is breathed by God, and it is useful for teaching, for rebuke, for improvement, for training in righteousness, so that people who belong to God may be complete, fitted out and ready for every good work. – 2 Tim 3:16-17 This last Sunday I preached what some might consider a controversial sermon, and…
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To my Youth
Categories: UncategorizedNull curriculum In the education world, there is something called ‘null curriculum’. Basically, it refers to the fact that when you DON’T say something, it can still communicate or teach students. So if a band director never praised his trumpet section for playing well, they might get the idea that they were no good (even…
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You Gotta Keep em Separated..
Categories: UncategorizedIf you have any number of evangelical Christian friends on facebook, I am sure you have (at some point) seen a blog post or link or article that explains why Millennials are leaving the church. Perhaps they open with some scary statistics and finish off with some broad condemnation. And since you have to blame…
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Bleep Bloop
Categories: UncategorizedYou may not have fond memories of the DMG-01, otherwise known as the Nintendo Game Boy, but I do. That grey plastic box with its red buttons and sickly green screen that couldn’t be seen easily either in direct sunlight or in the dark was at the top of my Christmas list every year. At…
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“Men” and whatnot
Categories: UncategorizedRecently, I saw a number of posts about the “Act Like Men” Conference, led by big names like Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, James MacDonald, among others. The conference gets its title from 1 Corinthians 16:13-14: Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, let all that you do be done in…