Jeff Kennon

Moving Content to SUBSTACK

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 21:37:52 +0000

Well…I decided to move some of my main content in writing to substack. Not that there won’t continually be posts and updates on this site, but feel that substack is a bit easier for me to navigate at the moment. Therefore, if you want to subscribe to my substack, then please do so. You can do so by clicking HERE. My goal is to put content out each Friday so…

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Review of Being God’s Image: Why Creation Matters

Jeff Kennon — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 16:02:05 +0000

C.S. Lewis writes in A Preface to Paradise Lost that “the first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used.” We do well therefore, to go back and carefully read the “In the beginning” of Genesis 1 and 2. I feel we commit a fatal error when we…

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Review of Pivot: The Priorities, Practices, and Powers That Can Transform Your Church into a Tov Culture

Jeff Kennon — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 20:17:31 +0000

No one reads a book in a vacuum. Or at least I don’t. Books are always read and digested in the midst of living life. This past week for me entailed being a part of a roundtable group of pastors/church staff in which my role was to lead in a discussion of spiritual formation. One of the specifics of personal growth of which I wanted to dialogue about concerned suffering…

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Review of Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down

Jeff Kennon — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 13:00:00 +0000

I think oftentimes when we consider those who are questioning the faith they grew up with, it is young adults that come to mind. This is particularly true of me as I work on a university campus. But perhaps it’s the young we hone in on because this is the group where most of the research and writing seems to feature. It does make sense why this would be so.…

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Book Review: Joining Jesus

Jeff Kennon — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 22:16:41 +0000

When I’m looking at a book, it’s funny how many times the subtitle really grabs my attention. And this is no less true with Joining Jesus: Ordinary People at the Edges of the Church by Moses Chung and Christopher Meehan. Ordinary people. How many times do we feel the need to be extraordinary? Being ordinary doesn’t cut it. No one notices ordinary. Ordinary doesn’t make the nightly news. And the “Edges of…

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Book Review: Centered-Set Church

Jeff Kennon — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 23:34:28 +0000

“Christianity has an image problem,” writes David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. And though written in 2007 in their book entitled UNchristian, I’m afraid this statement still rings true. I grow weary of reading how people both inside and outside the church have been wounded by so-called Christians. I continue to be broken over the number of people who walk away from church because they feel misunderstood, condemned, and unloved. So…

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You’re Only Human (A Short Book Review)

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 16:17:56 +0000

I’m not sure I’m comfortable with being human. Why? Because it seems so…well…so limiting. There’s got to be more , right? Yet in my search to be more I never seem to be satisfied. Can’t get off the merry-go-round of never feeling enough no matter how much “success” comes my way. So Kelly Kapic has done me (and all of humanity) a great service by reminding us that it’s not…

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Good Works: A Book Review

Jeff Kennon — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 17:53:27 +0000

Here I am, working with a ministry on a university campus, agreeing to read and review a book that for the most part, tells the heartbeat of Good Works, a ministry designed for the marginalized in our society. Not exactly the type of folks I encounter daily. Therefore, it could have been easy for me to have read it from a distance, that is, underline some catchy quotes, write a…

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Book Review: Self-Giving Love

Jeff Kennon — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 13:57:23 +0000

Philippians has worked its way into becoming one of my favorite letters in the New Testament. So needless to say, I have consulted and read quite a few commentaries/books on it. It made sense therefore, when I saw Dean Flemming’s book Self-Giving Love, being drawn to it by the title alone, to purchase a copy. What I appreciated at the very outset of the book is Flemming’s belief that the…

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Is the Church Becoming Less & Less Like Jesus?

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 14:20:41 +0000

In the past few weeks, I have stumbled upon a couple of articles, talked with a few pastors, listened to a few podcasts, and even read Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. In doing all of this, I have become more than a bit concerned. It appears that the church is becoming less and less like Jesus. Philip Yancey, whose writing I encourage you to pick up…

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Telling Truth In Non-Christian Ways

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 15:58:24 +0000

I’ve heard countless times that we, that is, Christians, need to stand for truth. I agree. Or at least I think I do. But we need to step back and think just a bit about what we mean by “standing for truth!” Unfortunately, I think many times our idea of “taking a stand” turns out to be not very Christian. We come across to others as a bull in a…

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Mark: The Gospel of Disruption?

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 13:18:49 +0000

I’m not sure what word comes to your mind when you think of describing the gospels to someone, but chances are, “disruptive” isn’t going to be on your list. I mean, would you walk up to someone who has just begun to read through the stories of Jesus and say to them, “Just so you know, what you are reading is going to be fairly disturbing?” I’m guessing you wouldn’t…

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Does The End Ever Justify The Means?

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 18:04:20 +0000

Does the end ever justify the means? In other words, does it really matter how you arrive at your destination as long as you get there? Does it make a difference in how you accomplish a goal as long as you achieve it? I realize for some the answer can be quite subjective and situational. But I think we need to be careful with such thinking, especially in matters related…

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The Cross-Shaped Life

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 21:10:14 +0000

It all started with a simple Doctor of Ministry project (not that there’s anything simple about a Doctor of Ministry degree). I was already past the designated time limit to have completed my DMin and basically just waiting for something magical to happen while looming in a dense fog. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I reached out to my faculty advisor, Dr. William Kirkpatrick, who…

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Habitual Transformation

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 17:10:56 +0000

A few years ago, I read some of James K. A. Smith’s work. One book in particular is You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. I posted about it (read here) as it made me think about habits and how they form us. When it comes to “discipleship” we generally view it as attending a Bible study but Smith made me think a bit outside the box.…

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Do We Dismiss The Gospel?

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:44:21 +0000

The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. What began as news in the gospel is easily assumed, slotted, and conveniently dismissed. We depart having heard, but without noticing the urge to transformation that is not readily compatible with our comfortable believing that asks little and receives less. Walter Brueggeman What Brueggeman has written is quite convicting…

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Does Walmart Help Write Our Story?

Jeff Kennon — Mon, 31 May 2021 17:39:59 +0000

You want to know what time of year it is? Just walk down the aisles of your local Walmart. Or any store like it. New Year’s Day. Super Bowl. Valentine’s Day. St. Patrick’s Day. Easter/Spring. Mother’s Day. Memorial Day. Father’s Day. Fourth of July. Back to School. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas Holidays. And the cycle repeats. It’s all quite liturgical is it not? What I mean by liturgical here is that…

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Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: A Book Review

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 21 May 2021 17:13:38 +0000

“Becoming a pastor was the worst decision I ever made.” This was Peter Scazzero’s cry to God. And to say the least, it grabbed my attention. The reason why is not only because I know pastors and ministry leaders who have prayed this kind of lament, but also because I have voiced this kind of lament to God myself. So where do we turn? Well, for Scazzero, it led him…

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A Thought Provoking Understanding of the Task of Evangelism

Jeff Kennon — Sat, 15 May 2021 12:47:03 +0000

Bryan Stone’s book, Evangelism After Pluralism: The Ethics of Christian Witness, has been in my pile of books to read for quite some time. Thankfully, I picked it up this week and am beginning to work my way through it. I’m only just a couple of chapters in at the moment but have already discovered what I think is a most refreshing understanding of the task of evangelism. Stone writes……

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How Do We Get People To Church?

Jeff Kennon — Fri, 07 May 2021 19:08:10 +0000

How do we get people to church? I know this sounds like a strange question. I’m not actually sure it’s really the question we need to be asking, but I do pose it because of the continual concern of the steady decline in church attendance (or at least our worries with it in the West). In fact, just recently, Gallup recently reported that U.S. church membership has fallen below 50…

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