Culture
When we were constructing the community center here in Chatham, our local newspapers would call periodically with questions about costs and construction progress. My policy was to always answer all of their questions with clarity and candor. I wanted our project to be completely transparent to their subscribers. I also
bless the world
Tom Sine's latest book, The New Conspirators, celebrates the increasing diversity in the church. Sine's book continues the theme of his classic book, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, published in 1981. Sine was a 'red-letter Christian' before the official group existed, and in this hopeful
church as abbey
Some in my Southern Baptist denomination are calling for more stringent church discipline. That's mostly because we can't find about half of our 16-million members. Obviously, some of our folks don't take church membership very seriously. The logical thing to do to solve that
Creativity
Are sermons dying? I don't mean is your preaching killing people, but are sermons themselves going the way of the dodo bird -- headed for extinction? Worship in most evangelical churches, and that includes many small churches, still resembles evangelical worship in 19th century churches -- singing, prayer,
Culture
Alltop.com is a new blog aggregator from the minds of the same folks who brought you truemors.com. Alltops aggregates a huge amount of stuff in a variety of categories, church.alltop.com being one of them. I am happy to report that we made the cut, or the
Congregation
Today I bought pollster John Zogby's new book, The Way We'll Be, subtitled, The Zogby Report on The Transformation of the American Dream. Called a "super pollster" because he uses innovative methodologies in his polling work, Zogby sees a very different future for the
Community
(A couple of days ago I wrote about several converging crises -- energy, economy, and environment. Since then the price of gas has gone down! Proof that I was wrong. Not! As a nation we are so shell-shocked by the energy crisis that we think a 10-cent reduction in the
Congregation
Last November, I posed the question, "If gas hits $4/gal, what will your church do?" We are beyond $4/gallon gas now, and the future looks different than we ever thought it would just a couple of years back. But, there are other crises which will affect
Culture
Thursday night the commonwealth of Virginia executed Christopher Scott Emmett. Emmett was convicted in the 2001 bludgeoning murder of his co-worker Mr. Langley. Apparently Mr. Emmett was guilty. It took a jury less than an hour to convict him. Mr. Emmett killed for his victim's wallet -- so
Culture
Title sound familiar? Well, apparently Buddhists in Japan are facing the same challenges as small churches in the US. Listen to this from the New York Times article, "In Japan, Buddhism May Be Dying Out:" The lack of successors to chief priests is jeopardizing family-run temples nationwide. While
Culture
Time magazine and other media outlets are reporting on a tablet of stone inscribed with ink that might contain a pre-Christian resurrection story. Or it might not, depending upon what scholar you listen to. The tablet, called Gabriel's Revelation by archaeologists, may contain lines that hint that a
Culture
With all the talk about churches meeting in bars, and Bible studies over beer, ABC has an interesting story about a Christian couple who tried to turn an English pub into, well, a pub. But with no swearing, gambling, darts or other "pub-like" behavior. Patrons hated it, and