Here’s a guest post by Adam C. English, writing about the list we concocted last weekend. I’m glad Tony took a picture and memorialized the half-baked list that he, Andrew Tatum, Lyle SmithGraybreal, Bethany Stolle and I came up with: the 25 most essential of all the books in Christendom. We brainstormed the titles around a low table late on the first night of the National Youth Workers Convention. Anything was possible. Suggestions flew around from all over, from the... Read more
Some think so: The past three decades have been boom times for big churches like the Lord’s Chapel. In the 1970s, only a handful of churches drew more than 2,000 people on Sundays. Now they number in the thousands. But the collapse of the Crystal Cathedral near Los Angeles, which is being sold to pay off more than $40 million in debt, has prompted fears that the megachurch bubble may be about to burst. Most megachurches — which earn that... Read more
I attended the National Youth Workers Convention over the weekend in Atlanta. I’ve been going for many years — first as an exhibitor (for YouthWorks, who now owns the conference), then as a speaker for 10 years, and now as an exhibitor (again). I went to a couple sessions this year, in addition to having many meetings. The new Theological Forums were a great addition, in my opinion. They’ve got to mature a bit, I think, but they’ve got real... Read more
Well, Tony Perkins is happy to oblige. Last week on James Dobson’s radio show, Perkins said the following about President Obama and the Obama administration: I have no doubt, as you look back over the last two and a half of years of this administration, that the President has used his bully pulpit—he has done public policy but beyond the public policy that he’s pushed for—that it’s created an atmosphere that is hostile toward Christianity. And we’re seeing this played... Read more
This post is part of the Patheos Book Club. Check out the Book Club for more posts on this book and for responses from the editors. I’ve already submitted a post for this book club, in which I both admired and argued with Renovaré’s 25 Books Every Christian Should Read: A Guide to the Essential Spiritual Classics. But then, this weekend, I found myself in a hotel bar, across a table from Lyle SmithGraybeal, who works for Renovaré and managed this... Read more
This infographic map makes me extraordinarily happy and proud. HT: Andrew Sullivan Full infographic at Goodreads Read more
Carl Gregg weighs in on his blog about 10 Reasons to Pray: Singer-songwriter David Wilcox’ CD Out Beyond Ideas is an incredible collection of music based on Daniel Ladinsky’s equally good book Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West.” Why pray? To experience this love for yourself. Martin Laird’s A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation is a small, 200-page gem of a book on prayer that is a recent companion piece to his previous (and also... Read more
Here’s some stuff going on in the youth ministry world that is of note: The National Youth Workers Convention takes place this weekend, with the addition of Theological Forums. I think this is an excellent development. I presented a paper at the Association of Youth Ministry Educators this fall, arguing that evangelical youth ministry is directly responsible for the Emerging Church Movement, which is a bit ironic since evangelicals have turned bearish on the movement. A version of that paper... Read more
The JoPa Group (aka Tony JOnes and Doug PAgitt) are excited to announce a conference for next Spring: Funding the Missional Church will be held May 1-3 in Minneapolis and will bring together the best thinkers and practitioners on the topics of building missional church communities that are financially sustainable. When a church goes missional, it really does change everything. But what does stewardship look like? How does a missional church raise money for its own mission? And how does... Read more
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hate binaries, too. I’ve written whole chapters arguing against binaries. But sometimes they’re interesting, at least as an intellectual exercise. And they’re definitely a conversation starter. Over the protestations of some commenters, I asked readers to take a poll yesterday, and the results are really surprising to me: Do the results surprise you? Read more
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