Today is Pentecost Sunday. I've spent my life in Mainline Protestant congregations where this is the one day each year the Spirit is set free. It is the one day when it is not only permissible, but expected to celebrate the birth of the church and the continued evolution of the church. It is a day when all are invited to be the church and to become the church. The Power of Love I had no plans to wake up early and watch the royal wedding yesterday. I imagined my only Read More …
Search for a Church 2.0: First Five Visits (#1734)
We have reached the half-way point in visiting the ten congregations on our short list of faith communities located near our home. Visuals The first grouping of images showcase #ViewFromThePew photos taken during our Sunday morning worship experiences in the four English language services we attended. The second grouping of images capture some of our experience in the lone bilingual service we attended. Variety The variety within these worship services extended beyond language, Read More …
Book Recommendations – May 2018 (#1733)
During the month of April 2018, I read quite a few books that warrant recommendation. My top rated books from that reading list that were published in 2018 appear below. (5.0) Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass (HarperOne, 2018) (5.0) The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future by Andrew Yang (Hachette Books, 2018) (4.5) New Power: How Read More …
Search for a Church v2.0 (#1732)
Search for a Church Search for a Church is the name I gave to the quest my wife and I undertook to find a faith community upon relocating to a suburb on the North side of the Dallas-Fort Worth (D/FW) metroplex in 2015. Our search took awhile - 17 months to be exact. The experience involved worshipping in 36 different Mainline Protestant congregations within a reasonable driving distance from our home. It concluded in February 2017, when we joined not one but two Read More …
Who Speaks “Church Speak”? (#1731)
The percentage of Americans fluent in "church speak" or the insider language used in many Christian faith communities has been waning for multiple generations. Realistically, we should expect even fewer people to understand this insider language in the future. Barbara Bush Yesterday I watched a good portion of Barbara Bush's funeral service. I immediately noticed the production effort involved in making the occasion fully accessible to a broad audience that may not be Read More …
Maximizing Your Church Campus (#1730)
In all of my many years of visiting faith communities I've yet to encounter one that proudly proclaimed its church campus was designed for use for an hour or two on Sunday morning and designed to go unused the rest of the week. I have, however, encountered plenty of churches that use their sanctuaries and other worship spaces only a few hours a week and/or have entire wings or buildings that are unused or used less frequently than once a week. For Members Only For some Read More …
Two New UCC Worship Experiences (#1729)
I'm accustomed to visiting a lot of churches. In a 24 month period ending in November 2017, I was blessed to worship with more than 40 different communities of faith in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Over the next four months, however, I only managed to worship in one while serving as that congregation's visiting minister. Choosing Where To Worship The last three congregations I served were all affiliated with the United Church of Christ. With these positive Read More …
Book Recommendations – April 2018 (#1728)
During the first quarter of 2018 I read a few dozen books published in the last fifty years. For the sake of this post, I've limited my recommendations to recently published works (books published since November 2017). (5+) Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks (St. Martin's Press, 2018) (5.0) The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviors that Transform Ordinary People into World-Class Leaders by Elena L. Read More …
My Last Day at WFPC (#1727)
Today, I concluded four months of service as visiting minister at West Fork Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Grand Prairie, Texas. Unique Experience This opportunity was unique for me in several ways, including starting as a surprise first role that was neither permanent nor interim shortest duration in a parish based role smallest congregation I've served first congregation I've served that is located in an industrial district first time to preach 15 Sundays in a row in the Read More …
American Well-Being is Declining (#1726)
Overall, the world has been becoming a better place for quite some time (for an in-depth consideration I encourage you to read Steven Pinker's latest book: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress). As someone who has always lived in America, however, I'm troubled by the decline in well-being that happened in the United States in 2017. Troublesome Year According to the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index, 2017 was a bad year. In fact, it was Read More …