Emphasis Preaching Journal

The common mind of the people of God is not the mind of one person or few people dominant over the rest, but is a melding of many talents, many ideas.

There's a tendency in our society to belittle that sort of collective energy. We are a nation of rugged individualists, even when it comes to religion. The Revolutionary War patriot, Tom Paine, was a free thinker who once wrote, "my own mind is my church." His way of thinking is part of our national identity.