This is an ongoing series by a pastor’s spouse about pastoral life from that angle. In this post we are asked to converse about the implications of pastoral geographical relocations. By PW: How have ministry relocations affected your ministry “home base”? Has this affected your family adversely? Or has it enriched your family’s experiences? How about the pastor(s) of your local church? How important is it to your congregation that they put down roots and be a long-term part of... Read more
A new piece in Time about tweeting sermons and services. What do you think? Anyone’s church discussing this? There’s a time and a place for technology, and most houses of worship still say it’s not at morning Mass. But instead of reminding worshippers to silence their cell phones, a small but growing number of churches around the country are following Voelz’ lead and encouraging people to integrate text-messaging into their relationship with God. <!– document.write('‘); //–> Read more
I’m curious about our readers: What is your practice when it comes to the use of set prayers? Do you pray through a psalm or the Psalms? Do you pray with prayer books? Do you, as Kris and I do, use prayer books like Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime ? Which are your favorites if you do use prayer books? I wrote about the use of prayer books (Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today... Read more
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more
Bart Ehrman has become the media’s darling scholar. Bart is a respected New Testament scholar with both a story to tell and a desire to tell it — even if he fails routinely to divulge that evangelical scholars do not believe much of what he is criticizing. Still, he’s got his points, they are in public, and here’s his newest one from The Washington Post and he is answering the question if he is out to destroy belief in the... Read more
Yo, Mayor Daley, how do you throw a slider? Moving reflections on grace by Derek Leman. Erika‘s post — and JR Woodward continues his series on the meaning of gospel today — I hope you can check it out. Jim Martin has a good post with good discussion about what a healthy church looks like. Speaking of healthy churches, they need people who have time to be involved (ChurchEthos). LL Barkat — nice images. John Frye contemplates the centrality of... Read more
Yo, Mayor Daley, how do you throw a slider? Moving reflections on grace by Derek Leman. Erika‘s post — and JR Woodward continues his series on the meaning of gospel today — I hope you can check it out. Jim Martin has a good post with good discussion about what a healthy church looks like. Speaking of healthy churches, they need people who have time to be involved (ChurchEthos). LL Barkat — nice images. John Frye contemplates the centrality of... Read more
Song by Fleetwood Mac? I like…. Dreams… Read more
From CNN.com. The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey. More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on... Read more
Again, Chris Folmsbee joins us to discuss the significance of too many youth ministers leaving youth ministry. We need your responses to this today … By Chris: I don’t think I am an alarmist. The word ‘departing’ in the title of this post may appear that I am but to me, the word ‘vanishing’ was too excessive. Another word that came to mind was ‘deserting’ and that just didn’t seem fair. At any rate, today I got news via... Read more
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