It has taken little more than one generation for American Protestantism to lose control of Sunday morning.
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).
Presbyterians are known for emphasizing life-long learning. Though Vacation Bible School can be an opportunity to provide adult learning, most churches do not take advantage of that opportunity.
“Oh look,” the mom announces as she picks up the flyer off the kitchen counter.
Sometimes Vacation Bible School can look and feel like barely controlled chaos. But the Spirit of God is hovering over those swirling children and dazzled teachers, creating a community of faith our Savior must thoroughly enjoy dancing around in. So it is undeniably fun, but what are they learning?
Some weeks ago, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, preached at a Kansas City area church. So I went to the early service and, at the Communion rail, received the body and blood of Christ.
By doing much of its work off-site and online, the Multichannel Church challenges a longheld assumption, namely, the necessity of being together on Sunday.
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.
Friends, Presbyterians, people of God – I come to bury Frozen Chosen, not praise him.
“How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” Psalm 133:1
How tragic it would be if the denomination-wide revival of enthusiasm around being the missional church were relegated to being all talk, no action!
Can you believe we are now consulting calendars for 2010?
I’m fourteen and, playing my first game on the girls’ basketball team in high school, caught the ball and dribbled down court to the basket. Made the basket. Expected cheers, received dead silence. I looked back to the other side of the court and saw all the girls standing there watching me. The lady coach sauntered down: “We play by woman’s rules, here.” On Brooklyn streets I played by “boy’s rules.”
If we have any hope of being a light upon a hill in this new decade, Christians in our country must insure that we will never again countenance the torture of war criminals.
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, ‘My servant Moses is dead.
Like many church leaders, I have been grappling with the steady decline of mainline Protestant churches over the past 45 years and trying to determine what we can do about it.
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.
I have been rereading a book by Clarence Jordan (author of the Cotton Patch translations of the New Testament) entitled The Sermon On the Mount ( Judson Press, Revised, 1952).
Many churchgoers are caught in a three-part dilemma:
Merry Christmas from all your friends at The Presbyterian Outlook!
A young adults minister recently presented a paper to her colleagues on how to understand and respond to Generation X, Generation Y, or, in her shorthand, “Generation XY.”
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
So how will you spend Christmas afternoon? The one thing I don’t miss now that I’m no longer serving as a congregation’s pastor, is the way I used to spend Christmas afternoons.
Measuring outcomes needn’t be any more difficult for a church than for, say, a corporation.
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