From the CCblogs Network Posts for December, 2010

From the CCblogs Network

New Year’s resolutions, a.k.a. "always reforming"

Dec 31, 2010 by Janet Edwards

I am a great fan of New Year’s resolutions. As December turns into January, I find myself taking them pretty seriously, pondering what one or two resolutions I might make for the coming year. What is most important to me is choosing something that I can make into a habit, thereby improving my way of being in the world in some small way.

From the CCblogs Network

Self-promote to survive

Dec 17, 2010 by James Henley

There’s a real danger in today’s culture, especially if you’re a young person in some kind of creative industry - I even feel this as a church leader - that in order to survive and become successful, you need to end up becoming obsessed with promoting yourself.

I don’t like it.

From the CCblogs Network

Does the manger matter?

Dec 15, 2010 by Adam J. Copeland

The Bible gets four shots to tell Jesus’ birth — well, four gospel writers plus Paul and the other epistle writers, so at least four. But the manger only appears in Luke. For many current-day Christians, the Christmas story would be incomplete without the manger scene: little baby Jesus wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

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What if it’s not men that men are looking for?

Dec 14, 2010 by Carol Howard Merritt

I got into a car recently, with another female pastor and an Evangelical man. I asked the guy about his church and he said, “I go to a church where men’s leadership is very important. Men don’t go to church any more. And so our church puts men in leadership so that it will attract more men.”

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O Antiphons: A theological translation

Dec 09, 2010 by Thom Turner

My friend Tim Ghali asked me to contribute some liturgy for an Advent service, and I chose to use the O Antiphons as a base. The O Antiphons are the daily prayers for services during the week proceeding Christmas Day.

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The endurance of rural congregations

Dec 06, 2010 by Steve Woolley

The little rural church I serve, along with two other retired clergy, has two dozen members, if you carefully count everyone whether there or not.  No one is young.  The church growth gang (now called church transformation) calls it a declining and dying congregation.  The thing is, it's been there for over a hundred years and has never had more than a couple dozen me

From the CCblogs Network

Maura Clarke and companions

Martyrs, victims of state-sponsored death

Dec 02, 2010 by Joshua Hearne

Maura was bleeding profusely and knew that death was likely waiting for her after every short and gasping breath. Yet, she noticed that the men had already sprinted back to their van. Their guns were still warm from the bullet they had discharged and the death they had wrought in Maura and her sisters: Ita Ford, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel.