Happy 6th birthday to Twitter! Writing for Mashable.com, Stan Schroeder effectively captures the significance of this milestone in the first two sentences of his post, which was publsihed earlier today: On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey tweeted the first ever tweet on Twitter. The sheer fact that you can understand that sentence shows you how far Twitter has gone since then. So What? Twitter passed the 500 million user count last month and Read More …
Archives for March 2012
Poverty Reality Check (#0674)
Sid Mohn is president of Heartland Alliance, the premier anti-poverty organization in Chicago and the Midwest. He recently wrote a Huffington Post article, "8 Facts About Poverty that will Blow Your Mind," based on a TEDx speech on the same topic. Mohn's facts follow in abbreviated form: Our kids are poor. At some point in their lives, half of all U.S. children will be on food stamps. Our adults are poor. Half of American adults will Read More …
Review of the Permanent Revolution (#0673)
Meet the Authors Alan Hirsch serves as founding director of Forge Mission Training Network, and co-leads Future Travelers, an innovative learning program helping megachurches become missional movements. A thought leader in the missional church movement, he is an associate professor at Wheaton College and an adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary and George Fox Seminary. His books include ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church (2009, co-authored with Michael Frost - read my Read More …
Is the World Getting Better? (#0672)
William McKenzie recently used his "Texas Faith" column in the Dallas Morning News to explore the question: Is the world getting better? Rather than answering the question personally, McKenzie provides responses from several local religious leaders to respond. Each leader provided a narrative response. Their responses fall into three categories: The world is getting better. Those favoring this position include Geoffrey Dennis (Rabbi, Congregation Kol Ami, Flower Mound; Read More …
9 Reasons Leaders Struggle (#0671)
Michael McKinney recently wrote about nine reasons why leaders struggle. His article highlights the list Denny Strigl, former CEO and president of Verizon Wireless, includes in his recent book: Managers, Can You Hear Me Now? (2011): Managers Fail to Build Trust and Integrity. They Have the Wrong Focus. They Don’t Model or Build Accountability. They Fail to Consistently Reinforce What’s Important. They Over-rely on Consensus. They Focus on Being Popular. They Get Read More …
Trusting in Trump (#0670)
Cathy Lynn Grossman's March 6, 2012 USA Today article explores a recent American Bible Society survey that finds "more Americans would follow Donald Trump's financial wisdom than the Bible's." Half of those surveyed (50%) would follow Trump's counsel while only around a third (32%) would take advice from the Bible. So What? The Bible, however, did receive favorable treatment from those who do not currently follow its teachings: roughly a quarter (24%) of those "who do not Read More …
The New Ten Commandments (#0669)
Evangelical preacher J. John is bringing his updated version of the Ten Commandments to the UK and the world through a new DVD: “just10 for churches.” Hannah Furness, in a piece for the Telegraph, reports that the new commandments use "short, simple language interspersed with slang." Additionally, some of the changes go well beyond simply updating language: The tenth commandment, for example, has altered the Biblical “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou Read More …
Toward a Religiously Literate City (#0668)
Bill Tammeus, a Kansas City area author and religious blogger, recently shared a list of ideas to help increase religious literacy. He submitted these suggestions to the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council in response to their desire to engage in a sustained effort that would last a year or longer. Tammeus' list included: Offer tours of sacred structures all over town — churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc. Put on a film festival Read More …
Top Challenges for the Mainline (#0667)
Carol Howard Merritt, a Presbyterian pastor and the author of Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation (2007 – read my review here) and Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation (2010 – read my review here), chaired a national committee for the Presbyterian Church (USA). She shares the four significant challenges for the next generation as identified by the committee: Our denomination is over 90% white, while the overall population Read More …
Review of I Am a Follower (#0666)
Meet the Author Leonard Sweet is the E. Stanley Jones professor of evangelism atDrew University and visiting distinguished professor of Evangelism at George Fox University, was voted one of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America, and continues to write and speak prophetically about the church. An ordained United Methodist pastor, Sweet has authored over 20 books and 600 articles, and is perhaps best known for his forward thinking ideas about the church. For Read More …