church culture | The Creation Effect

A single-panel comic strip showing a little boy and his mom sitting in the pews at church during a sermon, surrounded by other church-goers. The mom angrily swipes a phone from the boy’s hands, which are left suspended in texting position. The caption reads, “Caleb, gimme that phone – we’re at church! Now you sit there and draw a picture like kids have done for hundreds of years!”

Draw a Picture ✏️

What do you do when your kids are being kids at church? Yell at them? Challenge them? Or let them be?

Noel Powell

Jul 201 min read

Hand-drawn single-panel comic strip featuring a church worship team playing in front of a congregation of mostly older people in pews, holding hymnals. The team’s guitar player is wearing all black leather. He’s shredding on the guitar, playing behind his head, and kicking over a speaker, while everyone else watches in non-judgmental shock. The caption reads “Without warning, the new guitarist broke out into what the elderly congregation could only assume was the musical equivalent of speaking in tongues.

Rockin' in Tongues 🎸

Growing up in the 90s in my conservative home, there was good music (e.g.,Perry Como) and evil music (everything recorded after 1970)… I was always nervous listening to anything with an electric guitar. When my Vanilla Ice cassette tape was discovered, I thought my life was over. But the bible encourages the creation of new music (Psalm 33:3), and using a variety of instruments (Psalm 150:3-5) in our worship. As with everything, it’s not about appearance or style, but what’s

Noel Powell

Jun 141 min read

Pet Seminary 🦴

Pet Seminary – Training and equipping our nation's pets for ministry.

Noel Powell

Jun 101 min read

A hand drawn, single-panel comic strip featuring two preachers by the Jordan River in Judea. One is wearing camel hair, the other in a black suit. A man in the audience is letting another man know that's he's at the John the Southern Baptist's sermon, not John the Baptist's.

The Southern Baptist 📖

Given the massive crowd sizes and his... let's say, "unique condition"... John the Baptist, armed with the Holy Spirit, must have been a mic-dropping legend. Matthew 3: 4-6 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

Noel Powell

Jun 61 min read