My reading the last month has included a number of texts published this year (2015), including (5) Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents by Gary Scott Smith (Oxford University Press) (5) Contemporary Churches: Spiritual Transformation of Congregations by Louis F. Kavar (Louis F. Kavar) (4.5) My Church is NOT Dying: Episcopalians in the 21st Century by Greg Garrett (Morehouse Publishing) (4) Walking with Jesus: A Way Forward for Read More …
Sermon: Responsible Earthkeeping (#1558)
Sermon Text: Genesis 1:26 Sermon Excerpt Dominion is one of those words that makes me cringe. I cannot hear the word in any context without having some kind of reaction. There are many reasons for it, including a very troubling experience with a rather unconventional church. This church practiced Dominion Theology and took this task so seriously that it shaped every aspect of their identity. They understood that it was their role – along with other churches that held Read More …
Evolving Religion is Growing Religion (#1557)
I have read hundreds of blog posts and articles reflecting on the latest edition of the Pew Research Center's U.S. Religious Landscape Study (and I even contributed one such post in the days after the data was released). Since this body of research includes so much data with significance for my field of endeavor, I have benefited from the richness and diversity of these writings. The Texas Faith Blog of the Dallas Morning News asked several faith leaders whether these findings Read More …
Millennials are #1 Overall & Mainliners #1 Growing Edge (#1556)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, sometime this year Millennials will overtake Boomers as the largest generation in America. The Millennials are projected not only to remain the largest group for the next several decades, but also to widen the gap between their group and that of the next largest generational cohort (Boomers ranking second through 2028 then being overtaken by Xers). So What? Shortly after the Pew Research Center released the report on their latest U.S. Read More …
Sermon: Life-Giving Wind (#1555)
Sermon Text: Acts 2:1-22 Sermon Excerpt Wherever the Life-Giving Wind blows, the church is about unity not uniformity . . . Journey with me into the story. . . Step back and ask yourself, “If I had all the power in the world and wanted to enable a huge crowd of people from different parts of the world to speak to one another, wouldn’t I just give them a common language?” And, if I foreknew that the occasion was to go down in history as the birth of a religion, wouldn’t I choose a Read More …
Don’t Compliment My Sermons (#1554)
Frederick Schmidt, an Episcopalian Priest who serves as the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary , recently shared a list of 12 things your priest, pastor, or minister wishes you knew. Coming in third on his list is a wish regarding preaching: Don’t compliment my sermons. React to them. I would rather hear you struggle with what I’ve said from the pulpit or tell me that you disagree and why, rather than say, “That was nice.” So Read More …
Sermon: Peace Poles, Candles & People (#1553)
Sermon Text: Matthew 5:9 Sermon Excerpt Growing up in Texas I learned that bigger is better or, at least, bigger is much more likely to attract attention. In the late 1990s when creative decorating with candles was booming I saw some very large candles in homes and offices. Even the largest of these – candles nearly as large as I am – look tiny when placed beside the world’s largest candles. We can thank Darrel Brock for constructing the world’s largest candle. Back in 1971 his Read More …
American Church: Dying or Thriving Or ? (#1552)
A few hours after I finished reading Greg Garrett's new book, My Church is NOT Dying: Episcopalians in the 21st Century, I encountered a recent LifeWay Research survey that included a question about how the American church is faring. More specifically, participants were asked, "Which of the following trends do you believe describes church attendance today . . . declining, stable, dying, thriving, growing, or none of these?" Declining - 55% Stable - 51% Dying - Read More …
Fewer and Fewer Christians (& Even Fewer Mainline Protestants) (#1551)
In 2007 the Pew Research Center conducted their initial U.S. Religious Landscape Study. The 2014 edition, published earlier today, shows Christianity declined by 8% in America over the last seven years (78.4% to 70.6%). Allowing for the margin of error, this means the number of Christian adults in the U.S. has shrunk by somewhere between 2.8 million and 7.8 million. Decline Impacts All Christian Traditions Mainline Protestants and Catholics top the list for Read More …
Sermon: Courageous Compassion (#1550)
Sermon Text: Ephesians 4:32 (NIV) Sermon Excerpt Marcus Borg, a progressive Christian scholar who has shaped my thinking about what it means to live as a follower of the Way of Jesus, taught that “compassion is the central virtue of a life centered in God as known in Jesus.” Further, he suggests that although Luke 6:36 is typically translated “be merciful as God is merciful,” a better translation given the meaning we assign to words in our contemporary culture would be “be Read More …