So What Faith

Greg Smith

Discipleship

Religious Coalition Gets Involved in Major League Baseball (#0389)

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Writing for USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman explains the intersection of a religious coalition and Major League Baseball: A coalition of 25 religious denominations, including Christians and Muslims and Jews, is throwing some heat toward Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the players, saying the time has come to ban smokeless tobacco in the upcoming contract negotiations. Leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church (the two largest Protestant Read More …

What Kind of Disciple? (#0388)

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Scot McKnight, renowned New Testament scholar and professor of religious studies at Northpark University, wrote an article entitled "Full Disciple" in the February-March 2011 edition of Neue Magazine exploring the discipleship ministry of local congregations.  McKnight asks his readers, "What kind of disciple is your church producing (p.56)?,"  before suggesting that churches would benefit from aligning their vision with that of Jesus: For Jesus a disciple is someone Read More …

The End of Gender-Segregated Ministries? (#0387)

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Adam J. Copeland recently transitioned from serving as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hallock, MN to serving as mission developer of  the ELCA affiliated Project F-M, which is a new "faith community for young adults and the young at heart" in Fargo-Morehead area.  He recently blogged about the limitations of gender-segregated groups, suggesting: Gender-segregated groups seem very old school — glass ceilings are being broken left and right, though we still have a Read More …

My Reviews of 100 Recently Published Books (#0382)

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For the last two years, I have had the pleasure of reading and reviewing a book a week.  I encourage you to browse the alphabetical listing below as you ponder your summer reading plans.  For your convenience, each title is linked to my review. Author Title Year Aboujaoude, Elias Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality 2011 Allison, Jay and Gediman, Dan, eds. This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable American Men and Read More …

What Makes A Vital Congregation? (#0379)

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The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell has served as senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, TX since 1982.  During that time the church has grown from around twenty-five active members to over 18,000.  Recently, the Rev. Caldwell was asked, by the United Methodist News Service, "What makes Windsor Village a vital congregation?"  He answered: When I came in 1982, I shared with the administrative council then that we were going to do three things, and we’re still Read More …

Technology and the Church: Crisis or Opportunity (#0373)

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Lisa Miller is the author of Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife (2010), and formerly served as religion editor at Newsweek.  She recently wrote "My Take: how technology could bring down the church," for CNN's Belief Blog.  In this article Miller argues that the printing press was the key technology that enabled the success of the Protestant Reformation and the current move away from print editions of the Bible to digital ones like YouVersion may enable Read More …

Classroom Conversations Go the Way of Social Media (#0372)

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Trip Gabriel's recent New York Times article, "Speaking Up in Class, Silently, Using Social Media," explores the uses of backchannels (real-time online dialogue about a speaker or topic) in the classroom. While backchannels are being utilized at all levels of education - from elementary schools to graduate degree programs - the overall adoption rates are low.  Those who leverage this new interactive supplement to the learning experience employ a variety of means including Twitter, Read More …

Another Day When the World Didn’t End (#0370)

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Harold Camping has been in the news the last several days thanks to his prediction (and his organization's costly campaign to alert the world) that the rapture will occur today at 6:00 p.m. in all time zones.  Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Manya A. Brachear explains: Don't mark your calendars yet. Reports that the world will end Saturday are greatly exaggerated, according to many evangelical Christian scholars. For starters, California radio host Harold Camping, 89, president Read More …

New Ways of Being Church (#0365)

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One of many signs of the increasing awareness of the importance of technology for ministry was The Clergy Journal's April/May 2011 edition's theme: Technology and Community: Building Community.  Keith Howard, past executive director of the  Emerging Spirit initiative of the United Church of Canada, and Aaron McCarroll Gallegos, executive producer of wondercafe.ca, contributed an article entitled "Technology and Community Building," which includes these challenging words: Social media Read More …