Editor’s Note: Providing editorial commentary in this 2010 Fall Book issue is Roy W. Howard, pastor of St. Mark Church in Rockville, Md., and Outlook book editor.
The old-timers, they are a-changin’. At least they’re dismantling stereotypes of the golden years. Good for them. Good for all of us.
Greetings from University of the Ozarks in sunny, downtown Clarksville, Ark.
Why in the world would you set aside a whole month to appreciate your pastor? How many of us — other than athletes and actors — hear “well done” on the way out of work each week … from a whole group of people … and after only an hour’s work?
The Park51 Islamic center (inaccurately called the Ground Zero mosque) controversy has constructed the ultimate caricature of caricatures.
So Anne Rice — vampire novelist turned recommitted, Jesus-loving Christian — has quit the church, and the blogosphere has gone viral. What’s the big deal? Everybody’s doing it.
They need no exodus who dwell in the Promised Land.
The city of Minneapolis could not have been more welcoming to the two or three thousand Presbyterians who gathered for the 219th General Assembly. But her quiet twin brother, St. Paul, also threw open his arms of welcome.
But, would I want to live there? Thousands of Jewish settlers from the United States and Europe do. So do the Palestinians who have been there for four millennia or more.
So it’s time to cast votes for or against the proposed new Form of Government (see p. 16). Yea or nay?
Six candidates. Five ministers and one elder are standing for election to become Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
When an interim pastor showed up for work at a congregation in Queens, a borough of New York City, she thought the congregation had already died.
Will it play in Peoria?”
The report going to the General Assembly cuts to the quick. It affirms the denomination’s determination to be faithful to the teachings of Scripture and the Reformed tradition, but it admits that the effort to define what constitutes such faithfulness “has created significant debates among us.” It laments, “These debates (have) both clouded understanding of our mission and inhibited cooperative participation in it.”
Today’s my birthday. Forty years young, spiritually speaking.
If ever I were totally convinced and totally unconvinced, it’s right here and right now: on the matter of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) speaking out regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We’re winning. Christians in the Great State of Texas have taken the majority of seats on the state’s Board of Education, and they are re-writing the curriculum for social studies courses (final vote in May).
I accepted the call to pastoral ministry with humbled thrill. But when reality set in, I found myself dreading the thought of having to officiate at funerals. For the past four years writing, editing, and publishing have separated me from regular congregational leadership duties, and I find myself missing most the pastoral practice of officiating at funerals.
The veil of the temple was rent in twain … . That gospel verse captured my imagination while worshiping in Elim Bible Institute’s Maundy Thursday chapel service in 1974. As it crossed my mind, the whole biblical narrative flashed before my eyes.
“How can two walk together unless they be agreed?” Amos’ question (3:3-KJV) seems rhetorical, the answer self-evident. But his question begs another: to what degree must the two agree?
In a Newsweek issue focusing on the outpouring of post-earthquake support for Haiti, Editor Jon Meacham resisted the pull toward collective self-congratulation.
This edition of the Outlook was heading to the printer when news broke of a devastating 7.0 earthquake hitting Haiti, already the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Switzerland votes to disallow the construction of minarets (see p. 16).
The time has come to turn the page from a black-and-blue magazine serving a black-and-blue church to become a high-def, full color, twenty-teens magazine informing and empowering a high-def, full color, twenty-teens church.
What a decade it’s been! Just as December 7 became a defining date for the 20th century, so, too, September 11 stands as the defining date for the new century, at least so far.
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