David Z Nowell

This post originally published here on June 2, 2014. When I see followers of Christ disengage from the church, I start to worry. About them, yes, but more about the church. That is especially true when I hear them say they find the church largely irrelevant to what God is doing in their lives and in the world. Irrelevant. A really, really important word. I have to confess that I have not worked out all it means to be relevant, but I think I know it when I see it. I also know what it is not, and it seems …

Indulge me a bit here if you don’t mind, and perhaps we will stumble across an insight along the way. Dad would have turned 100 on September 2nd—tomorrow. I wish he were here to mark his centennial with his family, but instead he’s been an absent father — gone almost a quarter of a century, a victim of a physical heart not nearly as strong as his true heart. But perhaps in his absence, there has been some room made for growth of those he left behind. Dad was a typical small-town Baptist pastor, passionate about his faith, but not …