Jason Locke's Blog

John 20:11-18 (NRSV) But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and sa...

Liberec, Czech Republic. Not a highlighted spot on most people's maps. Certainly not a well-known place. But I lived in the Czech Republic for the better part of a decade, and I know its regions and cities. This article tells the tale of one church I encountered that displays all the characteristics of a seemingly vibrant church in an unexpected place. Communism decimated Czech churches. It's hard to destroy 1100 years of Christianity, and Communism wasn't the only philosophy to mount an assault on belief in the modern age. But Communism managed to finish off an entire generation of believers. When I moved to Prague, conservative Protestant or "evangelical" churches could claim maybe 50,000 people out of a population of 10 million. And many of those churches were demoralized after discovering that the fall of Communism didn't bring the masses flocking back through their doors. Czech  churches  certainly needed renewal, but I didn't see much sign of it....

This week, I read & shared a piece by Steve McSwain from the Huffington Post religion blog. McSwain seems to be a good guy, and he is a respected church leader. His article,   " Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore "  is a well-reasoned response to a previous blog post by Ed Stetzer on the Christianity Today blog. Stetzer is another widely read Christian leader. In his article,   " The State of the Church in America: Hint: It's Not Dying ," Stetzer argues that "The church in America is in transition," and that we shouldn’t really think of it as declining or dying. What is Stetzer saying? He wants to reassure us that the American church is just getting rid of "cultural" and "congregational" Christians – i.e., those who aren't serious about their faith. According to Stetzer, this will leave the church with a group of people who can seriously engage society as "a mobilized mission force in the midst of this missio...

Cork, Ireland was far more interesting than I’d imagined. I only had two real expectations when we visited Ireland in 1997. First, I expected to see beautiful, green pastures with medieval ruins and countless sheep scattered across rolling hills and coastal cliffs. Second, I hoped to feel and taste the atmosphere in village pubs brought to life with bands and bards singing ancient tunes amidst a non-stop flow of Irish stout served up in pints. Our week in Ireland certainly provided all that and more. What I didn’t expect, however, was to have a meaningful church experience during our journey. Just like in Prince Edward Island , Churches of Christ of the American Restoration Movement have no real presence in the Republic of Ireland. Well, I mean that we have no presence outside the capital city of Dublin. And even that is an infinitesimally small work in the midst of a large city. So basically, we didn’t plan to cross paths with any CofC friends. On our only weekend on the ...

Prince Edward Island was the last place I expected to have a moving church experience. Rewind to 2007. With our elementary-age boys in tow, we made the 1200-mile drive from Morgantown, West Virginia to Canada, to Cavendish on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. We loaded up the Olds Silhouette (the Cadillac of minivans) and went northeast toward the Atlantic Provinces for a little summer getaway. I can’t quite recall why we picked PEI. It had nothing to do with Anne of Green Gables—books that neither Julie, our boys nor I had ever read. We have no family up that way and no childhood memories of a trip we were trying to relive. It just seemed like a fun vacation spot. It wasn’t the boring slog of a drive that you might expect. On the journey north, we stopped in Boston for the obligatory tour of Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church—along with a nonstop stream of Dunkin Donuts. The fireworks extravaganza for the Fourth topped it all off on the banks of the Charles Rive...

It’s hard to know what a healthy person looks like these days. Take Angelina Jolie for example. For many people, she is the picture of good health. Some tabloids occasionally accused her of being too thin. But most folks idolized her “healthy body.” How little they knew! She has a genetic predisposition that almost guarantees breast cancer. Her mother died at age 56 from breast cancer. He aunt just died from the disease. With this scary prognostication in hand, Angelina Jolie did something incredibly shocking. She underwent preemptive mastectomies. Next, she’ll have reconstructive surgery and then have her ovaries taken out for good measure. Talk about a radical cure for a disease she didn’t even have! She knew, however, that her apparent good health was not the complete story. So who is healthy? And how do we know what good health actually looks like? Here’s one obvious conclusion:              ...

Does Galatians 4:1-7 confuse anyone as much as it does me? After studying this for some time, I am prone to agree with the words of 2 Peter 3:16. "There are some things in [Paul's letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures." I hope I'm not one of the ignorant and unstable people. But I'm in the camp of folks who can say that Paul's writings are occasionally hard to understand. Let me clarify what I'm having a hard time clarifying. I don't really think it's difficult to understand Paul's point in Gal 4:1-7. The broader context makes it clear. Paul says that the Law of Moses is inferior to the promise previously made to Abraham. Gentile Christians, he writes, are descendants of Abraham because they share the same faith in God (3:6-7) that Abraham had (Gen 15:6). They therefore don't need to obey Jewish rules and customs. That's his point. from Anthony...