Bruce Reyes Chow is a consultant who served as founding pastor of Mission Bay Community Church, until May of this year, and was the former moderator of the General Assembly of the 2.3 million member PCUSA. He recently blogged about the importance of being both spiritual and religious. In the post, he notes that the number of people who think of themselves as spiritual but not religious continues to grow as has been captured by research, including that done by Read More …
Trends
Jesus as Facebook’s Most Liked? (#0486)
Jennifer Preston's recent New York Times article explores how a Facebook page about Jesus became the most popular page of all: For the last three months, more people have “Liked,” commented and shared content on the Jesus Daily than on any other Facebook page, including Justin Bieber’s page, according to a weekly analysis by AllFacebook.com, an industry blog. The Jesus Daily is the creation of the 41 year old medical researcher Dr. Aaron Tabor. Tabor writes most of Read More …
Best Church Logos (#0475)
Will Mancini is an author, pastor, and speaker as well as the founder Auxano – a church consulting group with a unique approach to developing a church’s vision frame before providing traditional consulting services. In a recent blog post, he shared his list of the "Top Ten Church Logos for Telling Story through Design" created by Auxano design. Visit his post to learn more about how each logo "connects with the church’s story and vision" and the links below to see the Read More …
Education & Religion — It’s Complicated (#0472)
Two weeks ago, I blogged about Philip Schwadel's latest research that shows that while education does influence religion (religious participation, belief, and affiliation) the nature of that influence is far more complicated than the commonly held view suggests. My original post was based on a summary of his findings. After writing that post and engaging in a few discussions, I sought out a copy of the journal article: "The Effects of Education on Americans’ Religious Practices, Read More …
Favorite Authors of Progressive Pastors (#0471)
Earlier this summer, the United Church Observer posted an article revealing the most highly recommended theological or philosophical authors according to a select group of United Church of Canada clergy. The top five: Marcus J. Borg is an American theologian and a prominent voice among contemporary Jesus scholars. He is the author of 19 books. Douglas John Hall is a United Church minister and emeritus professor of theology at McGill University in Montreal, Read More …
Learning from Other Congregations (#0469)
Warren Bird, Research Director for Leadership Network and co-author of 24 books on various aspects of church health and innovation, blogged about the feedback he received from a recent focus group of pastors who shared their "great ideas for great churches," which include: Gifts for first-time newcomers Partnering with the local YMCA Shaping the Culture of the City Intentionally Multi-Ethnic Churches Citywide Youth Group Planting Churches to Reach People Like You So Read More …
The Most Religious Universities (#0468)
John Blake recently wrote a post for the CNN Belief blog about the results of the latest Princeton Review survey of college students. Specifically, he focused on how schools fared with respect to how their students answered a question about just how religious other students on campus are. Students responded to the question using a Likert (1 to 5) scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The top 5 schools with the "most religious students" are Brigham Young Read More …
Review of Upside (#0463)
Meet the Author Bradley Wright is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. After keeping quiet about his Christian faith early in his career, Wright became more open after gaining tenure. His specialties include religion, social psychology and crime. Wright’s two most recent books are Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites . . . and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media (included Read More …
Church Communication Concerns (#0461)
Vince Marotte is the internet pastor at Gateway Church in Austin, Texas and author of Context & Voice. Recently he wrote an article for Church Marketing Sucks about his observations of a communication gap in church life. More specifically, Marotte is particularly concerned with two issues: Too many pastors lack the basic abilities to use modern communication tools and in turn have to rely on other people, which is inefficient at best and irresponsible Read More …
Seminary President Discounts Online Theological Education (#0460)
Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently made remarks that counter conventional wisdom and practice in theological education. Tammi Ledbetter, writing for the Southern Baptist Texan, reports: Patterson’s definition of theological education is to expose students “to great men and women of God, to their lives, their homes, their habits and their commitments,” a process that requires sacrificing the comforts of home. If it were nothing more than Read More …