I've been sharing some of my experiences as a first-time guest in worship in a variety of congregations since 2010, including Last week, I was the guest minister at Central Lutheran Church in Dallas. Today, my wife and I visited Mayflower Congregation United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City for the first time. While we had never attended before, we felt we knew this congregation a bit through their former Senior Minister (1985 - 2020), The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers. He has been Read More …
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Search for a Church: Repeat Visits (#1663)
One of my resolutions for 2017 is to "join (and be actively involved in) a local community of faith." Thankfully my recent experiences have helped prepare me to achieve this goal. A few months ago I shared details of my visits to 34 different congregations. Since that time, I have managed a few additional visits increasing the total to 36 congregations. The following chart offers a detailed accounting of the number of my worship experience by number of visits and the number Read More …
Learning from Church Spies (#1180)
Terry Mattingly writes the nationally syndicated “On Religion” column for the Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., and is director of the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. His latest article, "Lessons Learned from Church Spies," features the story of one spy's experience. The church spy, Chuck Lawless (evangelism professor and the graduate dean at Southeastern Baptist Theological Read More …