Where should announcements about church and community be placed in a Presbyterian (Reformed) service of worship? This question needs to be asked since, although they provide essential information about the mission of the church, they may also seriously disrupt the flow of the worship of God by injecting the trivial into contemplation of the eternal.
There we were, Mark, Barbara and I, our arms stuck out a second-story window, trying to tie knots in ropes to secure a newly printed AIDS awareness banner to our church building so people passing by could see it.
A pastor whom I admire recently scoffed at technology. A not-for-profit agency director did the same, saying especially that she was determined to avoid Facebook.
In 1991, Loren Mead wrote “The Once and Future Church,” a book about the future of ministry.
A Presbyterian pastor seeking to work alone on sermons outside the office she kept in the church building was parked in a corner of an outdoor Starbucks courtyard in the Washington, D.C., area.
On Dec. 6, 2011, Jack Haberer presented a Webinar titled, “What’s to Become of Our Church? …Trajectories of Hope.” In it he..
In October, the public watched the debacle of poor police reaction to the “Occupy Oakland” protests.
The Presbyterian Fellowship recently released “Draft Theology Proposals” prepared by a “Theology Task Force” in which I participated together with two friends and colleagues. My participation in the task force has led a number of people to infer that I am affiliated with the Fellowship and that I support the formation of a “New Reformed Body.”
Sometimes we make church too complicated. And in the process of impressing ourselves and others with our erudition, we lose focus.
It’s time to recover the word my mother taught me never to say: “Stupid.”
The term “theonomy” (divine law as the basis for civil law) is an intriguing concept. While theo-cracy (which is not the same..
Rev. John Stott died at 3:15 p.m. at his apartment near All Souls Church on the West End of London on July 27, 2011.
Sometimes in the Christian life it’s crucial (a word, aptly enough, rooted in the cross) to take a few steps back and ask again the foundational question of our faith:
Sometimes in the Christian life it’s crucial (a word, aptly enough, rooted in the cross) to take a few steps back and ask again the foundational question of our faith:
What is the ideal relationship between pastors and the elders, deacons, and trustees and other lay leaders of their congregations?
Leader: Ten years we were brought to our knees as a nation in shock,
fear, anger, grief. For perhaps the first time, we woke up to God’s truth that
we are as vulnerable as the rest of humanity.
It requires a certain amount of chutzpah — and certainly faith — for my congregation to begin a strategic planning process to figure out who and what it wants to be and do in three to five years.
Asked what the most important commandment is, Jesus replies that loving God is the most important commandment and that loving our neighbor is the second.
Once again, Presbyterians could have discussed how race operates among us and how it could operate. The most recent opportunity came through a solid, dynamic theological statement — the first from the Southern Hemisphere considered for inclusion in our Book of Confessions.
ALBION, N.Y. — As church ladies plant flowers, I’m standing in front of the First United Methodist Church thinking about that warm September day decades ago when I was married here.
I’ve been wondering about the church. Not my local congregation, or even Presbyterians as a whole (although the PCUSA does play a role in this discussion), but the whole ball of wax — the church, in all of its varied configurations.
On Tuesday, May 10, a vote in the presbytery of the Twin Cities area
tipped the balance in a 30-year debate about ordination standards in the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), presumably allowing gays and lesbians to
become pastors, elders and deacons in gay-affirming congregations.
Ask any Protestant how the Roman Catholic Church is structured, and you will hear, “The pope rules the cardinals, the cardinals rule the bishops, the bishops rule the priests, and the priests rule the congregations.” Too simple, but mostly true. In most cases.
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