Christian Faith Archives - Randall J. Greene Blog

Christian Faith, Digital

Online Church, A Return to Embodied Faith

When people criticize the idea of online church, they often talk about how online worship services feel disembodied, disconnected from the physical experience of community. Is there another, better way for us to think about online church?

9. Weaving the Church into the Physical and the Digital

We, the body of Christ, cannot content ourselves to sit back and watch as these new media become the message without us; the world needs God’s story of hope and humanity to be woven into the fabric of its life, everywhere that life is found.

8. Handling Conflict, Bodily Presence, and Gathering Together

Part of the challenges to doing church online is in actively managing conflict, protecting privacy, encouraging participation in local communities, and gather together in-person as a church body for sacraments and celebrations.

7. Developing Online Leaders and Worship Practices

Church culture is dramatically different than what we see happening on social media, and members entering an online church for the first time will bring their assumptions about social media into this new context. How might we bring people into this posture of cruciformity and reconciliation, when that posture is so foreign to today’s online experiences?

6. Harnessing the Potential of Online Church

How can we translate Paul's concept of the church into an online context? How can we match his understanding of community, mission, and service with the technological tools and resources we have available to us today?

5. Worship, Sacrament, and Conflict in the Corinthian Church

Let us consider how Paul structured worship and leadership in the Corinthian church, as well as how he handled conflict within the church body to maintain growth and faithfulness.

4. Paul and the Church in Corinth

Paul's leadership and communication with the church in Corinth in the first century provides a basic framework that we can use to explore the application of an online church today.

3. Limitations and Dangers of Social Media

If you ask almost any social media user today, they will tell you that the incredible potential of social media is often not fully realized—sometimes as a result of the nature of the medium itself, and sometimes as a result of the way we use it. In this post, we will examine some of the difficult realities of social media in our society today.

2. The Promising Potential of Social Media

The emerging technologies of online connection are powerful tools. But to what extent does social media provide incredible opportunities, and to what extent does it hurt our real life communities?

1. Why We Should Think About Online Churches

Since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, many churches have begun streaming their worship services online. But what would it look like for us to actually engage our communities in online community? Is this even something we should be talking about?

#AllLivesMatter and Manifest Destiny

The words "Manifest Destiny" aren't just a couple of inspirational words put together by the White House to sound nice. It refers to a very specific ideology from our nation's history, and it's not one we should celebrate.

My Journey as an Antiracist

My journey as an anti-racist began in 2014. I spent all of my teenage years growing up in Ferguson, Missouri, a little suburb north of St. Louis, before I moved away to Kansas City for college. A few years later, in 2013, my wife and I moved to a little town in Oklahoma where my […]

Foster Parenting and Being In, Not of, Relationship

Shortly after our foster daughter came to live with us, one of my friends asked, “How should I refer to her? As your daughter, or as your foster daughter?” I'm learning that the answer isn’t quite that straightforward.

Radicals, Centrists, and the Postures of the Kingdom of God

Centrists and moderates often have a bad reputation. They’re often accused of not really taking a position on today’s most important issues. I’m not here to defend centrists today. But I wonder if this entire conversation might be missing the point.

Hoping for a Year of Positive Politics

We are now less than one year away from the next Presidential election day, and I suspect the coming months are going to be filled with the most bitter, contentious, and polarizing politics our nation has seen in the past century or more. Yet I'm hopeful that we can have a season of positive politics – here are four things I think we need to do.

“Mind Over Matter”

I used to think I could conquer the limitations of my body by exercising my mind. I thought my body was working against me in my pursuit of God. But if God made my body and called it “good,” why would I treat it as corrupt?

Sabbath: Resisting the Weight of the World

The call to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy is a call to remember that God is the one in control. Every day, I need this reminder that I can trust others to serve while I rest, and that the manifestation of God’s kingdom in the world does not rest entirely on my shoulders.

How My Mom Showed Me God

My mom came in, saw my tears, and sat next to me, asking what was wrong. So I opened up to her – something I don’t do well – and shared why my heart was tearing. Her words to me changed my life. I think about them often, and even when I’m not consciously thinking about them, they impact the way I hear God speaking to me.

Love Like Christ

Loving a person is different than not hating them. In my own life, I find that my indifference – or my activism solely from behind a computer – keeps me from truly loving like Christ.

Wild Goose Festival: An Uncomfortable, Sacred Space

As I type this, I am sitting in a Barnes and Noble in Asheville, North Carolina. In about an hour, I will head to the airport and fly back home to Kansas City, but in the meantime, I am working to process the overwhelming multisensory experience of the Wild Goose Festival I just left. This experience will be churning in my head for months, maybe years.

I'm Not a Rockstar – I'm a Child of God

When I see the incredible impact others have made for the kingdom of God – leading ministries that touch thousands, or eradicating homelessness in their cities, or drawing public attention to mass injustices – I feel like I am insignificant. But Scripture reminds me that my worth doesn't come from my accomplishments, but from my status as a child of God.

Reclaiming Scripture from the Tangled Needs of Modernism

We evangelicals have come to see the Bible in a way that reflects our own insecurities and desires rather than understanding Scripture on its own terms. Let’s return to a holy book that allows us to ask questions, rather than one that recites our answers back to us.

Community in Communion

Communion has recently become one of my favorite Christian practices, because I love the way it demonstrates (and calls us to) unity in the body of Christ.

Reconciliation is the Gospel

We live in a broken world filled with division. We know that; we feel it. Right now, the United Methodist Church is gearing up for a special conference where they will be voting on how they can – or can’t – stay united in the midst of their passionate disagreements about human sexuality. Many Methodists are questioning […]

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