Culture
Youth culture sees the Michael Phelps pot-smoking incident much differently than the adult world does. Three Billion, a blog about youth culture, says, You've got to feel sorry for Michael Phelps. A lifetime of training, early mornings, injuries, pain, performing on a global stage to billions of people
Community
In their new book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and The Churches That Reach Them, Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley, and Jason Hayes provide a comprehensive analysis of who the eighteen-to-twenty-somethings are and what churches are doing to reach them. Ed outlines the purpose of the book by saying --
Creativity
USA Today tells how one church turned its altar into a boxing ring, giving a whole new meaning to the term "church fight." New Life Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota set up the ring complete with ropes and corner posts, and staged a tae kwon do bout
Community
Most of you who follow this blog do it by feed reader. If you get me on a feed reader, you may not know about some of the new tools I'm using. I'm finding them useful: 1. Twitter. Ed Stetzer evangelized me to Twitter at NOC2008.
bless the world
One of the things I learned while I attended seminary in Texas was that dominoes are for more than lining up and knocking down. Be that as it may, we're headed for an ecclesiastical domino effect brought to us by an economy in recession -- a recession, we
church as abbey
A friend of mine sent me Seth Godin's new book, Tribes . All Godin's books pack lots of new thinking between their small covers. I'll post more about it after I'm finished, but already I've run across these gems: * "A
Community
Here is the sermon I preached this morning from Psalm 78:1-7, titled The Next Generation. The Next Generation Psalm 78:1-71 O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from
Congregation
Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion reports that less than 11% of the US public considers themselves unaffiliated with any church or other religious group. That figure is about 4% -- or 10-million people -- less than previously thought. And, the unaffiliated hardly ever attend church --
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
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
Creativity
I pared down my Google reader list several weeks ago. I was trying to keep up with too many blogs, too many bloggers, and too many categories. Now I have 5 categories -- culture, emerging church, marketing, simple life, and small church -- 33 subscriptions in all, down from about
Community
CNN notes today that 40% of Americans want to live in "walkable" communities, and that the suburbs as we know them may be an endangered species. The subprime mortgage crisis, which put many people in homes they could not afford, has led to record foreclosures, bankruptcies and repossessions.