The seeker next door

What drives the "spiritual but not religious"?

by Linda Mercadante

It’s tempting to dismiss SBNRs as salad-bar spiritualists concerned primarily with themselves. But many assumptions about this group are off target.

Life after life after death

by Rodney Clapp

While Christian scholars have long questioned body-soul dualism, it remains common in church circles. This may finally be changing.

Junk food epidemic

Eliminating food deserts isn’t enough. The nation’s diet problem calls for sustained community attention--and better federal policy.

Eating in ignorance

Do we know where our food comes from?

by Norman Wirzba

Reconciliation requires relocation. To see the effects of our food choices, we have to get close to the land.

The seeker next door

What drives the "spiritual but not religious"?

Life after life after death

Junk food epidemic

Eating in ignorance

Do we know where our food comes from?

The judge

May 18, 2012 by Ryan Dueck

Like most churches, we occasionally receive requests for money from people in our community. I suspect I am not alone when I say that I have come to dread these calls. It’s not that I don’t think that the church should help people in need, or that I resent the “intrusion” on my time or anything like that.

Learning to love Jesusy love songs

May 18, 2012 by Steve Thorngate

I grew up on evangelical praise choruses. I cut my musical teeth playing them at church. As a young adult I found a home in a more liturgical church, and I turned against choruses with a vengeance. I adopted two go-to arguments: worship isn’t about me and my personal-relationship-with-Jesus, and its purpose isn’t to pump me full of arena-rock enthusiasm.

Friday digest

May 18, 2012

New today (and yesterday) from the Century: Misconceptions about the spiritual-but-not-religious, the editors on why eliminating food deserts isn't enough, more.

Talking about incarceration

May 17, 2012 by Amy Frykholm

In a recent interview with the Century, Michelle Alexander, the civil rights lawyer and author of The New Jim Crow, wonders about the stigma in many churches attached to people who have been recently released from prisons. “The deep irony,” she says,” is that the very folks who ought to be the most sensitive to the demonization of the ‘despised,’ the prisoners, have been complicit and silent.”

But the kinds of conversations that Alexander’s book seems to demand are very difficult to have--in churches and outside them.

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Post-Mother's Day murmurings

What do you do to celebrate in your congregation?

May 14, 2012 by Carol Howard Merritt

Sue came into the church office in order to help with some paperwork and plans for Sunday morning worship. “What are we doing for Mother’s Day?” she asked.

I paused. I had always benignly neglected Mother’s Day at our church. I thought of it as a Hallmark holiday, and not something that should fit on a liturgical calendar. I was taught in seminary that we should never mention it. Plus, there were personal reasons as well.

How do we find the time for social media?

Eight ways to manage your social media ministry

May 10, 2012 by Carol Howard Merritt

Church leaders are already strapped with not enough hours in the day. And now we’re supposed to be engaging in social media too? How do we manage it all?

Cancer and theology

May 07, 2012 by Carol Howard Merritt

Our family is moving. As we pack up our stuff, making sure that each item is securely packaged, I’m also shifting things inside myself. My husband is going to start a new church. For the first time in fourteen years, I will not be a pastor serving a particular congregation.

(Re)imagining Christianity

Apr 28, 2012 by Carol Howard Merritt

What is one belief, practice or element of Christianity that must die so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years?

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Learning to love Jesusy love songs

May 18, 2012 by Steve Thorngate

I grew up on evangelical praise choruses. I cut my musical teeth playing them at church. As a young adult I found a home in a more liturgical church, and I turned against choruses with a vengeance. I adopted two go-to arguments: worship isn’t about me and my personal-relationship-with-Jesus, and its purpose isn’t to pump me full of arena-rock enthusiasm.

A freebie for Tony Perkins

May 16, 2012 by Steve Thorngate

After Sen. Rand Paul made an offensive (and unfunny) joke involving the word "gay," Tony Perkins (of the Family Research Council) criticized him:

I don’t think it's something we should joke about. We are talking about individuals who feel very strongly one way or the other, and I think we should be civil, respectful, allowing all sides to have the debate.

Whaaa? That doesn't sound very hate groupy!

Some marriage equality links

May 15, 2012 by Steve Thorngate

Last week I joined the chorus of those who wished for a bit more from the president's endorsement of same-sex marriage. Among those who were more unambiguously enthusiastic, I found E. J. Graff's later post pretty compelling.

The wrong question, but still the right answer

May 10, 2012 by Steve Thorngate

Early this week, the same video kept popping up on my Facebook wall. It's from a press conference in Greensboro, at which North Carolina NAACP president William Barber (whom the Century profiled here) made a crucial point: "How do you feel, personally, about same-sex marriage?" is the wrong question. The right question is about equal rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

By midweek, my Facebook wall was overwhelmed with comments (and links) about President Obama's decision to give the right answer to the wrong question.

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The judge

May 18, 2012 by Ryan Dueck

Like most churches, we occasionally receive requests for money from people in our community. I suspect I am not alone when I say that I have come to dread these calls. It’s not that I don’t think that the church should help people in need, or that I resent the “intrusion” on my time or anything like that.

Stories of life and death

May 17, 2012 by David Warkentin

As I reflected on the value of stories last week, I realized it’s also important which stories we tell.

Eight reasons church leaders should talk more about money

May 16, 2012 by Margaret J. Marcuson

1. According to the gospels, Jesus talked about money and possessions frequently. It seems like it is worthy of more of church leaders’ attention than we give it in our preaching and teaching.

2. People have to deal with money every day. We need to provide more spiritual support for them in their daily lives with money.

Salt, light and introverted congregations

May 04, 2012 by James Sledge

For a variety of reasons, Christian faith in America tends to be a private and personal thing.  Faith is what we believe, and that can be safely tucked away in our brain somewhere.  In the faith understanding I grew up with, you can be a faithful Christian if you go to church on Sunday and abide by societal norms for morality.  So, in essence, if people don't check the church par

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Ministry in the 21st century

What is pastoral ministry like these days, and how is it being shaped in new ways? The Century talked to pastors about the challenges and surprises of their early years in ministry.





Features

Organizing for communion

Ministry in the 21st century

Mar 14, 2012 | An interview with Isaac S. Villegas

“I like to think I’m a grassroots organizer," says Isaac S. Villegas of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship. "I rearrange pews; I find people to make sloppy joes for hungry people.”
Features

Faithful reinvention

Ministry in the 21st century

Feb 15, 2012 | An interview with Scott Kershner

"Religious commitments are no longer taken for granted as part of North American people's lives," says Scott Kershner of Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in Washington State. "So space opens up to ask very basic and interesting questions."
Features

Entrepreneurial idealism

Ministry in the 21st century

Nov 30, 2011 | An interview with Carol Howard Merritt

"What would happen," asks Carol Howard Merritt of Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., "if we coupled baby boomers' prophetic focus with the pragmatism of my generation? What if the church unleashed us to plant churches?"
Features

Pastor as witness

Ministry in the 21st century

Sep 22, 2011 | An interview with Kevin J. Long

"It doesn't happen every day," says Kevin J. Long of Orchard Park Presbyterian Church in suburban Indianapolis. "But it is thrilling to see someone begin to grasp the good news of Jesus Christ."
Features

Bearing testimony

Ministry in the 21st century

Jul 28, 2011 | An interview with Katherine Willis Pershey

"People need to hear the good news," says Katherine Willis Pershey of First Congregational Church in Western Springs, Illinois. "If the church doesn't take on this mission, I'm afraid—well, that's where that sentence can end. I'm afraid."
Cover Story

Deeper history

Ministry in the 21st century

Jun 20, 2011 | An interview with Josh Carney

"We have rejected much of our immediate [evangelical] past," says Josh Carney of his church, University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. Looking to older traditions, "we found that some of our objections had already been addressed."
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