Red Letter Christians

“Roosevelt Park Rising: A memoir of the renewal of a pastor, a church, and a neighborhood”, an excerpt

RLC Editor — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:00:57 +0000

I witnessed two resurrections while working as a pastor and community leader in Roosevelt Park, a neighborhood on the southwest side of Grand Rapids, Michigan. A resurrection—bringing what is dead back to life—is a divine upheaval of the status quo and an exceedingly rare event. Eugene Peterson, best known as translator of The Message, wrote, “This (resurrection) is God’s characteristic action…

Source

The End of Us vs Them

RLC Editor — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:00:31 +0000

Us versus them. It is one of the oldest sentences the human heart knows how to say, older than language, certainly older than scripture. Us is the circle drawn warm and close, the people whose grief is our grief, whose children we would run into a burning house to save. Them is everyone on the far side, the ones we have decided, somewhere below conscious thought, we are allowed not to love.

Source

“How the Church Can Directly Support a Detained Sister in the South Texas ICE Detention Center”

RLC Editor — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:00:15 +0000

This is the story of my friend, Linda. Linda has been detained and separated from her community and family in the South Texas ICE Detention Center in Pearsall, TX since June. She missed her son going for his first ride on the big yellow bus, she missed my birthday (although that didn’t stop her from helping me plan it from inside detention), and she’s missed so many moments with friends and family…

Source

Who Deserves a Place to Go?

RLC Editor — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:00:54 +0000

Evansville sits on a bend in the Ohio River, down in the southwest corner of Indiana where the state runs out and Kentucky begins. It’s a working town—coal barges on the river, hospitals and shift work, plants and warehouses. The kind of place where people are careful with a dollar and suspicious of anyone who isn’t, and where you earn what you have. That’s worth knowing, because what I want to…

Source

Dolly Parton Knew How To Be Human.

RLC Editor — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:00:05 +0000

This planet has lost so much with the passing of Dolly Parton that it’s difficult to even find a foothold for the grief, a place to begin to process all that she was and all that she gave us. In the coming days, there will be countless, well-deserved tributes devoted to her seismic songwriting and singing career, her formidable business acumen, her indefatigable optimism, and her easy…

Source

“Church Tomorrow? What the ‘Nones’ and ‘Dones’ Teach Us About the Future of Faith”, an excerpt

RLC Editor — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:00:48 +0000

(pp. 3-5) Decline hurts all over. It feels like a judgment on our congregations and on us as followers of Jesus. He told us to “therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). We couldn’t even keep our own children in the faith. I believe in the resurrection power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I know we can’t get to resurrection without sitting at the cross.

Source

“Beneath and Between: And Other Overlooked Words That Illuminate God”, an excerpt

RLC Editor — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:00:56 +0000

I have been a heartbroken Christian, but I am not a retired one. While the expression of Christianity has been alienating and in some ways forsaking, the essence of it is, I maintain, whole and good and true. That I can even make that statement with conviction has been one of the revelations and blessings of writing this book. What I now understand, which before I took for granted…

Source

As ICE closes in, Ohio churches line up families to care for Haitian kids left behind

RLC Editor — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:58 +0000

Editor’s Note: Previously published on Religion News Service on August 17, 2026. SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (RNS) — On Friday evening (Aug. 14), Philomene Philostin, a local youth pastor, business owner and nonprofit leader, stood on the street corner outside Springfield, Ohio’s City Hall, crying out in Haitian Creole. Pastor Fontil Daity, a Haitian immigrant who leads a local Pentecostal Haitian…

Source

My Daughter Brought Me Back to Jesus—But Not Back to Religion

RLC Editor — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:00:51 +0000

If you had asked me ten years ago what role faith would ultimately play in my life, I’m not sure I would have had a meaningful answer. I grew up Roman Catholic in a conservative household and attended Catholic school as a child, so Christianity was always present in my life. In many ways, it shaped the rhythm and structure of my upbringing. But like many people, especially during and after…

Source

What Kind of Christian Have We Become?

RLC Editor — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:00:08 +0000

Here is a Tuesday in my part of the world. My friend is a Palestinian Christian living in a village near Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. On her way to work, she drives on a Palestinian road. Above it, close enough to see the paint on the guardrail, runs another road built for the Israeli settlement that now sits on land that belonged, until recently, to families in her village.

Source