Pete Rollins Answers

Pete blogged about people’s tendency to stay in churches even when they don’t agree with how they are being run. It was a challenging post, but I was confused by his definitive point. Is the only option for those who don’t agree to leave the church altogether, until they find a church with which they [...]

Wise Words For the Church From 37Signals

Jason Fried is often asked how his company created the culture that they are widely known for. His answer is one of those unexpected (maybe we should start expecting them) sermons from the Secular World. You should read the whole extremely short post. An even shorter snippet is below.

“What do you recommend we do to [...]

New Churches As Social Networks

Minnesota pastor, author, and blogger Doug Pagitt recently said,
I think that Christianity is fundamentally a people movement that we should understand in social networking theory, not a belief system that we distribute through institutional applications and franchising models.
It’s an interesting idea–that Christianity should be understood as connected people, not as distributed beliefs. That who we [...]

Sacred Coffee Shops and Wonder Bread

I read all 5 pages of Christianity Today’s featured article, How to Save the Christian Bookstore (Hint: Stop making it so religious.) and I have a question for the author.
What’s Communion bread?
The article concludes that Christian bookstores will have to change a lot if they’re going to survive. The author wraps up his conclusion with [...]

Sociology of Church

If you know me, you probably know that I love sociology and I love religion, especially everything about that sad hopeful mess called church. I ran across a summary paper by Josh Packard the other day, and found his research to be really interesting.
It’s worth a read.

The Ship of Fools

Allow me to plug one of my all-time favorite sites, The Ship of Fools, and tell you that today they are 10 years old. I’ve been there for only 3 of the 10, but a few features are definitely worth checking out (especially in their brand new layout and design unveiled today).

It’s a magazine for [...]

A Conversation About Inclusivity

Everyone talks about how we should be more inclusive, implying that we should accept everything from everyone, no matter what. What are the consequences of opening that door?
Inclusivity is the new tolerance. Remember when tolerance was the big buzz for churchy arguments? Slippery liberals cried, hugged, sang Kumbayah, and begged us all to be more [...]

What About Seminary?

Here’s me. I grew up in a ‘Northern’ Baptist congregation in Erie, PA. By the time I was in 6th grade I was getting involved in the youth group leadership. By my senior year I led the youth group as student leader (under guided yet trusting supervision from an amazing youth pastor) as well as [...]

To See It For Themselves

I’ve heard a lot of people say something like, “When it comes to a church movement, I’m uncomfortable when a church won’t clearly explain its positions.” Even in the poll we did here last week, people expressed a desire for strong, clear doctrine from the church. But I think the edges of the church are [...]

A Semi-Millennial Cycle

Approx 1 A.D. – Jesus is born.Approx 500 A.D. – The Fall of the Roman Empire.Approx 1000 A.D. – The Great Schism, separating Eastern Orthodoxy from the Pope and his Roman Catholic Church.Approx 1500 A.D. – The Great Reformation, separating Roman Catholicism from Luther and his Protestant movement.
Approx 2000 A.D. – ?
…
The time is ripe [...]