{"id":58623,"date":"2022-05-02T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T13:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=58623"},"modified":"2022-05-01T17:06:43","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T21:06:43","slug":"hedging-my-bets-at-vbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Hedging my bets at VBS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2022 Bob Smietana contributes another look at what\u2019s likely to be a big national story \u2014 and thousands of local stories \u2014 over the next few decades: \u201cThousands of churches close every year. What will happen to their buildings?<\/a>\u201d It\u2019s a good overview of the decisions facing waning congregations and the communities surrounding them. A taste:<\/p>\n

Hung also hopes congregations will develop what he called \u201ckingdom-mindedness\u201d \u2014 looking at the bigger-picture ministry of the Christian church rather than their own interests. When he talks with a church about closing \u2014 and what will happen to their buildings \u2014 he begins with a \u201cposture of success,\u201d giving thanks for all the congregation has accomplished in its history. He also gives thanks for those who gave generously to support the church\u2019s mission in the past and encourages the church to bless future generations in the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the most loving thing we can do for our kids and for our neighbors?\u201d Hung said.<\/p>\n

Not all churches are open to that kind of thinking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 That context makes me wonder about a tangential point in another RNS piece by Smietana \u2014 the strange tale of \u201cHow 5G caused a feud between a small Christian school and T-Mobile<\/a>.\u201d The school in question, Christian College of Georgia, trains part-time clergy for the Disciples of Christ. Smietana writes: \u201cAs the number of small churches rises \u2014 half the churches in the U.S. draw 65 people or fewer to services, according to the Faith Communities Today study<\/a> \u2014 the need for part-time pastors will continue to grow. With a windfall from the sale of its license, the school could help provide training for many of them in its denomination.\u201d<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t plunged into that Faith Communities study, but it seems to me that the rising number of small churches could mean one of two very different things. It might mean that there are a growing number of new small churches with 65 or fewer people attending. Or it might mean that a bunch of churches that used to have many more people attending have now shrunk into that under-65 category, briefly registering there before shrinking further to join the ranks of the thousands of churches that close every year mentioned in that previous link.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Celebration Church in Jacksonville is not<\/em> one of those churches that \u201cdraw 65 or fewer to services.\u201d But they soon might be<\/a>. Yeesh<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cCo-living rentals banned in this Johnson County city after unanimous council vote<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Mason, Tennessee, is a small rural town. The majority of its population is Black, but for most of its history its elected officials were all white. That changed a few years back when an investigation into massive fraud and corruption led to the resignation of almost the entire town government. The new mayor and council inherited a mess \u2014 financial records in total disarray and hundreds of thousands in debt incurred by the kleptocrats of the previous white administrations.<\/p>\n

Mason\u2019s new leaders have been making slow, difficult progress repairing the damage done to their community in those decades of minority rule, and now things are looking up: Ford Motor Co. is building a multi-billion dollar, 4,100-acre electric truck and battery plant just outside of town that\u2019s expected to bring 27,00 new jobs to the area.<\/p>\n

And so, of course, the state government is stepping in to ensure that the Black residents and leaders of Mason don\u2019t benefit from this development<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is how you pull a Rosewood<\/a> 100 years later.<\/p>\n

\u2022 For a different kind of American Gothic horror story from Tennessee, here\u2019s Rene Ebersole for the Marshall Project, \u201cHe Teaches Police \u2018Witching\u2019 To Find Corpses. Experts Are Alarmed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so here, again, is My Ouija Board Story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A perverse and unjust machine is becoming slightly less perverse and unjust: \u201cMedical Debts Have Counted Against 43 Million Americans\u2019 Credit Scores. That Is Finally About to Change<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n

The shift will go into effect on July 1 of this year. On that date, medical debts that were previously paid will be erased from credit reports so they can\u2019t be counted against people when they seek loans or undergo credit checks for employment. Unpaid debts that are less than $500 also will no longer be placed on credit reports. Unpaid medical debt that exceeds that amount will eventually appear on credit reports\u2014but the agencies are increasing the time period before those debts would show up from six months to a year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So wage-earners will continue to be quantified as inherently less trustworthy than usurers and rent-collectors, and thus will continue to be charged more for everything. But the fact that those wage-earners once incurred medical costs and paid them off<\/em> will no longer be counted against them.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The title of this post comes from this lovely personal testimony from Lucy Dacus<\/a>:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mcdsHQ273Mc<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHedging my bets at VBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hedging my bets at VBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-02T13:00:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-01T21:06:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2022\/04\/Golden.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/\",\"name\":\"Hedging my bets at VBS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-02T13:00:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-01T21:06:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"\\\"All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before.\\\"\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hedging my bets at VBS\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hedging my bets at VBS","description":"\"All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hedging my bets at VBS","og_description":"\"All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2022-05-02T13:00:19+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-05-01T21:06:43+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2022\/04\/Golden.jpg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/","name":"Hedging my bets at VBS","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-05-02T13:00:19+00:00","dateModified":"2022-05-01T21:06:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"\"All it did in the end was make the dark feel darker than before.\"","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/05\/02\/hedging-my-bets-at-vbs\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hedging my bets at VBS"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}