Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He is a contributing author to the Buddhist portal at Patheos. In one of his recent posts, he shares a powerful parable: Here’s an updated parable from the ancient Taoist teacher, Chuang-Tzu: Imagine that you are floating in a canoe on a slow-moving river, having a Sunday picnic with a friend. Suddenly there is a loud thump on the side of the canoe, and it rolls Read More …
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Marketing a Mainline Congregation (#0443)
Martin Thielen, Senior Pastor of the 7,600-member Brentwood United Methodist Church, wrote the cover story for the July 26 (2011) edition of the Christian Century about his experience marketing his previous parish. Initially a Southern Baptist, he left that denomination when it took a fundamentalist turn to become a United Methodist pastor. In the article he shares what he learned while Senior Pastor of Lebanon First United Methodist Church in Read More …
Consider a Workflow Audit (#0431)
Seth Godin is the author of twelve books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change, and work. He recently blogged: Go find a geek. Someone who understands gmail, Outlook, Excel and other basic tools. Pay her to sit next to you for an hour and watch you work. Then say, "tell me five ways I can save an hour a day." Whatever you need to pay for this service, it will pay for itself in a week. So What? Almost everyone wants to work Read More …
Signs You’re Failing (#0430)
Steve Ingold, High School Director at Cornerstone Fellowship in Livermore, CA, wrote a guest post on Josh Griffin's top-ranked youth ministry blog, More than Dodgeball, about signs that indicate a youth minister is missing the mark. Ingold's list of thirteen items includes: … if I put the ministry ahead of my relationship with God. … if I put the ministry ahead of my relationship with my wife and family. … if don’t invest in meaningful friendships outside of youth ministry Read More …
Demand for Intelligent Internet Video (#0412)
TED is "is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading." TED conferences "bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less)." Writing for Mashable, Sarah Kessler shares the story of how recordings of these talks have now been viewed 500 million times: When Director of TED Media June Cohen shopped around the idea for a television show featuring lectures from the organization’s famously elite Read More …
Half Way Through 2011 (#0410)
I spent a great deal of time in my youth on soccer fields. While no two games were the same, we always paused at the midpoint for half-time. During the half-time break the coach helped us evaluate our performance during the first half and offered recommendations for what we needed to do in the second half. Unfortunately there is no national half-time holiday each year to remind us to stop and assess our performance and consider what changes we need to make in the Read More …
Adjusting Expectations (#0403)
In an article published by the Associated Baptist Press, Amy Butler, senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington D.C., suggests that parishioners' expectations about church are often unrealistic. She writes: I’m thinking specifically about the yawning divide between church members’ expectations and the reality of living in community. What is it really like to be the church, the gathered community of Christ? You know, the place where everybody loves each other, Read More …
Do Mainline Protestants Really Have Bigger Brains? (#0384)
A recent study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation suggests that mainline Protestants have larger brains than those with other religious affiliations. Yonat Shimron's article summarizes the findings: It found an association between participants' professed religious affiliation and the physical structure of their brain. Specifically, those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more Read More …
Youth Minister/Director as Advocate (#0378)
Lars Rood is the Lead Youth Minister at the 4700 member Highland Park Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and the author of the forthcoming book Youth Ministry on a Shoestring: How to do More with Less (2011). Recently, he blogged about youth ministry job descriptions. In contrast to the common expectations of job descriptions that emphasize either a youth director/minister's relational skills or programming and administrative skills, Rood proposes a third way: . . . I want to throw out Read More …
Job Seekers Should Go to Church (#0374)
"Need Job? Try Church" is not a paid advertisement, an evangelistic effort, or a government sponsored initiative. It is the title of Dennis Nishi's May 15 Wall Street Journal article, which suggests: Across the nation, local churches and other religious organizations have stepped up their recession-busting efforts with free career workshops, résumé clinics and networking functions. The latter can generate quick leads if leveraged properly since religious-centered networks Read More …