Meet the Author David Kinnaman is best known as the co-author of the bestselling book UnChristian: What a New Generation Thinks About Christianity and Why It Matters (2007). Since joining the Barna Group in 1995, the 37 year old Kinnaman has designed and analyzed nearly 500 projects and supervised more than 350,000 interviews for client projects. Currently, he serves as president and majority owner. Book Basics UnChristian (2007) is an incredibly insightful, timely, and well Read More …
Wisdom from the Class of ’42 (#0560)
David Brooks begins his recent New York Times article, "The Life Report," by asking readers over the age of 70 to consider sharing a reflection about their life so far. He then shares wisdom from the Yale class of 1942. On the occasion of their 50th reunion members of the class wrote short autobiographical reflections. Brooks summarizes: The most common lament in this collection is from people who worked at the same company all their lives and now realize how boring they Read More …
How Many Devices Does a College Student Need? (#0559)
Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, recently released their 2011 report on undergraduate students and technology. The associated infographic provides a visual overview of the findings divided into the following categories: institutions, instructors, software and hardware. Since yesterday was Black Friday and Cyber Monday is coming soon, I was drawn to the section on Read More …
The Megachurch Bubble (#0558)
Bob Smietana's recent article "Some fear megachurch bubble may soon burst" considers the possibility that the best days for megachurches may soon end. Since the 1970s the number of churches with 2,000 or more in weekly worship attendance in the United States has grown from fewer than a dozen to thousands. Several factors suggest the bubble may burst: Aging pastors/clergy and likelihood of significant decline during ministerial transition Unsustainable economics, including large Read More …
Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration (#0557)
Last night I went to Temple Shalom in Naples, FL where I participated in an Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration. This service of worship included people from Celebration Metropolitan Community Church, First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Islamic Center of Naples, Naples United Church of Christ, Spiritual Assembly of Bahá’í's in Naples, Temple Shalom, and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Naples. Together we gave thanks in a service that included music, Read More …
New Interfaith Hunger Documentary (#0556)
"Peace of Bread: Faith, Food and the Future is a compelling and heart-felt look at how young, and not so young, faith leaders are trying to finally make a dent in this country’s 49 million people (17 million of which are children) that are experiencing hunger" (National Council of Churches News Service). Take a minute to watch this video introduction to the documentary. A Peace of Bread - opening sequence from Diva Communications on Vimeo. So What? This month has been as Read More …
The Day My Blog Didn’t Appear on Facebook (#0555)
Social media is designed to be social. With so many users leveraging multiple channels, many tools exist to make it easier to share information across channels. While I no longer use Facebook as much as I once did, I have continued to import my blog posts as notes. A few days ago, I received the following message when I logged on to Facebook: Changes to How You Share Content in Notes You currently automatically import content from your website or blog into your Facebook notes. Read More …
Review of The Myth of American Religious Freedom (#0554)
Meet the Author David Sehat is assistant professor of history at Georgia State University. He earned his Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007. The Myth of American Religious Freedom (2011) is Sehat's first book. Book Basics Today most Americans believe that our country has a rich history of religious freedom. This pervasive perspective stands in contrast to our nation's actual practices, which have been less than Read More …
God is Still Speaking – the First Decade (#0553)
Ron Buford is the lead architect of the United Church of Christ's (UCC) Still Speaking campaign which began in 2002. He recently accepted a call to serve as Interim Minister for Discipleship at Old South Church in Boston, and authored an article about Still Speaking in the denomination's magazine (Vol. 2, Issue 2 - p.54-56). In that piece he explores his experiences over the last decade, including his travel to congregations in all but two of the UCC Conferences. Read More …
Social Media Interaction with Students (#0552)
Earlier this week Slant33, a part of Barefoot Ministries, posted the responses of three youth ministry experts to the question: "Where do you draw the line on social media interaction with students? Why?" The responses vary widely: D. Scott Miller, director of the Division of Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, has a personal policy to never friend anyone under the age of eighteen on Facebook. Additionally, he believes this is the best policy Read More …