Community
The ancient Celtic Christian abbeys produced beautiful illuminated manuscripts, the most notable being The Book of Kells. In his book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill credits Irish monasteries with rescuing ancient texts, recopying them, and then taking them back to Europe to replace the texts burned during the
Congregation
Now that we're 8 years into this millenium, here are the 3 things I think churches must do in this pluralistic, postmodern, post-christendom world -- 1. Tell the story. Read both the Old and New Testaments and the constant practice that emerges is that God's people
Community
At exactly 9:22 PM on December 31, 2007, Confessions of A Small-Church Pastor hit 50,000 page views! Almost 1,000 views per week for our first year is an exciting milestone. What a great way to end the old year and bring in the new! Thank you for
Community
Debbie and I have been visiting our daughters and their families between Christmas and New Year. Hope your Christmas was wonderful and you spent it with those you love, too. As we close 2007, here are the Confessions of A Small Church Pastor "Top 10 Posts of 2007"
Lectionary Yr A
How God Came To Be With Us podcast, from Matthew 1:18-25. I preached this sermon on Sunday, December 23, 2007, using the fictional character of ‘Itzak the baker’ — a friend of Joseph of Nazareth. I hope it brings a new perspective for this Christmas season.
Community
boysandgirlsclubchristmas party2007 Here are photos of the Christmas party at our church for 83 kids from the Boys and Girls Club. This year a local business, First Piedmont, sponsored the party, and our own Chatham Fire Department donated the gifts. The kids had a blast, as you can see.
Resources
I added a new feature to the right sidebar -- clips from my blogline that I find interesting. Click the post title to go directly to the original post on the original blog. You'll find stuff about trends, culture, church, resources, and mostly things I like. Hope you
Culture
Time posted an interesting article, What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith, last week. Sam Harris, author of the best-seller The End of Faith, and doctoral student in neurology at UCLA, has published a new study of how the brain responds to faith questions. Interestingly, there is little difference between
Creativity
Kevin Kelly talks and writes about the one machine which, he says, the internet is becoming. Read his complete post here and another post here. Here's Kelly describing the one machine in his own words -- "The next stage in human technological evolution is a single thinking/
Community
You might have noticed 3 new page tabs at the top of Confessions of A Small-Church Pastor. I've added About Our Church , Sermons, etc, and The Abbey Church as permanent pages. * About Our Church is the story of what we're doing here at Chatham Baptist Church,
Community
8:05am -- Debbie and I finish breakfast and say the morning office from Celtic Daily Prayer, a tradition we try to keep everyday. 8:35am -- Preparing to visit a homebound member when I receive a call at home from her daughter that she died this morning some time
Community
A pastor appeared on Fox network's Greta Van Susteren show Monday, and revealed that the missing 4th wife of ex-cop Drew Peterson told him that Peterson admitted killing his 3rd wife. Former Westbrook Christian Church pastor Neil Schori told "On the Record" that he was "