New churches and the people supporting them need to understand the commitment they're making.
denominations
Take & Read: American religious history
Grant Wacker recommends the best recently published books in his field.
We church leaders need to stop fretting about our future and immerse ourselves in the baptismal waters that proclaim perfect love.
The mainline has long congratulated itself for being prophetic because it's good at voting for progressive agendas. But change happens at the local level.
While I welcomed people with open arms, I also had a lurching gut. Because as much as I wanted to pat myself on the back and believe that they would be utterly free of disappointment, I knew that they wouldn’t. I would mess up. The church would let them down. Sooner or later, they would find out that they exchanged one set of issues for another.
Some church planters refer to denominations as "widget factories." A big cultural commute exists between fledgling communities and church hierarchies.
As a writer, being a part of denomination has incredible benefits and difficulties. Here are some things I learned about the relationship between the two.
This "Which denomination are you?" flowchart from Lutheran Satire has been making the rounds this week.