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Bomb blasts targeting Christmas Day church services in two Nigerian cities have left at least 28 people dead, with three more attacks on other towns.

The Islamist group Boko Haram said it had attacked St Theresa’s Church in Madalla, near the capital Abuja, killing 27 people.

A second explosion shortly after hit a church in the central city of Jos. A policeman died during gunfire.

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Update: There are some photos there, please be warned they are difficult to see.

Another update: An AP story is here also–read it all.

Every few years Christmas is on a Sunday and suddenly believers face a dilemma: Stay home hanging stockings and opening gifts, or upend those cherished domestic traditions and go to Sunday church services. That is, if their church is even open.

Nearly 10% of Protestant churches will be closed on Christmas Sunday this year, according to LifeWay Research, and most pastors who are opening up say they expect far fewer people than on other Sundays. Other reports suggest that churches across the board are scaling down their services in anticipation of fewer worshipers.

“We have to face the reality of families who don’t want to struggle to get kids dressed and come to church,” Brad Jernberg of Dallas’s Cliff Temple Baptist Church told the Associated Baptist Press. Similarly, Beth Car Baptist Church in Halifax, Va., is planning a short service featuring bluegrass riffs on Christmas music. “I’ll do a brief sermon, and then we’re going home,” said Pastor Mike Parnell.

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Recently, we had to move out of our historic building because of damage caused to our walls by the August earthquake centered in Virginia. Within days we received several offers to help house our various services from Lutherans, Methodists, fellow Episcopalians and our generous neighbors at Mount Zion AME Church.

The next thing we know, we are benefitting from the gifts of our fellow citizens and worshiping on Sundays at 11:15 at the oldest Catholic parish in the Carolinas, St. Mary’s on Hasell Street….

…[and later] picture my surprise as an invitation came from the president of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue across from St. Mary’s to have Christmas services at their location. Did I get that right? Did our Jewish brothers and sisters just invite us for Christmas at the synagogue?

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A church service will be held in Padstow on Monday with members of the Catholic and Anglican communities worshipping together.

Under a legally binding sharing agreement, the Catholic community will now be able to worship together with their Anglican counterparts.

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(Alert blog readers are asked to note where the author of this article teaches–KSH).

A recent study on youth and discipleship by Slavic theologian Jana Struková suggests that the key to this sort of formation is in renewing a sense of Christianity as a vocation. A vocation is a calling, a “voicing” of the gospel into language that speaks directly to the reader or listener. As Martin Luther argued, the gospel is nothing until I hear it addressed to me; once my ears are trained to hear it, I can begin responding, “working with words” to live out an answer to its call.

Reframing Hollinger’s concept of acculturation as vocation shows us that gospel words are irreplaceable in the formation of Christian youth. If they are brought up constantly hearing God’s loving address, they will grow to love the gospel like they love their friends and family. And this is not just due to the nostalgic familiarity of the “big black book on the shelf.” No, it is the message, the content””the very voice of God in the words of Scripture””that inspires devotion. The challenge of Christian education, according to the early 20th-century theorist George Albert Coe, is to “lead each one to adopt” the words and teachings of the faith “as his very own desire, purpose, and practice.”

How well are we meeting this challenge? A quick survey of adult classes and Sunday sermons does not paint a pretty picture….

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Christian worship is a political act – as much as any placard waving demonstration or any conniving behind the scenes number-crunching. In worship, Christians bow to a power above and beyond Kings and Presidents. They name Jesus Christ as the supreme Lord. They proclaim a name that is above every name. In Christian worship we are reminded that reality isn’t what it appears to be.

That is the remarkable achievement of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). It draws the worshipper into the world as the Scriptures describe it – a world in which only God is Almighty and yet supremely merciful and in which human beings are utterly dependent on him, for life and for new life.

That contemporary revisions of the liturgy have de-emphasized the sovereign power of God by preferring to address him by any name other than “Almighty” loosens a knot that binds the theology of the BCP tightly together.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a Bronx church’s case on whether it can hold worship services in New York City public schools.

The decision ends a 16-year legal battle over the rights of churches in city schools and means 160 area churches have roughly two months to find new places to hold worship services.
Lawyers for the Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical congregation that meets at P.S. 15 in the Bronx, filed a petition in late September asking the court to review a June appeals-court ruling barring churches from holding worship services on school property.

Now that congregation, along with dozens of others, has until Feb. 12 to find a substitute house of worship.

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In short, the position under the new arrangements is that no Church of England religious premises may become “approved premises” for the registration of civil partnerships without there having been a formal decision by the General Synod to that effect.

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The first such ceremony in the state is likely to be during the New Year’s Day worship service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Wilmington, where Wilmington attorneys Lisa Goodman and Drewry Fennell will say their vows in front of their families, friends and fellow congregants.

Goodman is president of Equality Delaware, the advocacy group that drafted the law and steered it through the General Assembly. Fennell is executive director of the Delaware Criminal Justice Council.

“To have someone ask for a Sunday morning service made perfect sense to me — that’s when my wedding was,” said the Rev. Patricia Downing, rector at Trinity. “It’s when the community gathers traditionally, and it’s a wonderful witness to the fact that these relationships are lived out in community.”

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The Abbitt-DuPriest Collection of Anglican Prayer Books at the University of Kentucky will be unveiled as part of a dedication ceremony scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, in the Great Hall, of the Margaret I. King Building. The dedication ceremony is free and open to the public.

This collection of prayer books, dating to 1592, is a gift to the UK Special Collections from the Rev. Travis T. DuPriest, former director of the Dekoven Retreat and Conference Center in Racine, Wis., and UK alumnus.

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In the case of the Catholic Church’s new missal, the liturgical book parishioners follow during the celebration of the Mass, it took nearly 11 years of linguistic labor since Pope John Paul II issued his 2000 directive to produce a new English version of the Mass liturgy — fast by any church standards.

Today, the first Sunday of Advent, English-speaking Catholics in the U.S. will use a new missal for the first time in nearly 40 years, and likely for a long time to come.

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God of truth and grace, who didst give Isaac Watts singular gifts to present thy praise in verse, that he might write psalms, hymns and spiritual songs for thy Church: Give us grace joyfully to sing thy praises now and in the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye that mind to come to the holy Communion of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ, must consider what Saint Paul writeth to the Corinthians, how he exhorteth all persons diligently to try and examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart, and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; (for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we be one with Christ, and Christ with us;) So is the danger great, if we receive the same unworthily. For then we be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour; we eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord’s body; we kindle God’s wrath against us; we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases, and sundry kinds of death. Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of his Word, an adulterer, or be in malice, or envy, or in any other grievous crime, bewail our sins, and come not to this holy Table; lest, after the taking of that holy Sacrament, the devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul. Judge therefore yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord; repent you truly for your sins past; have a lively and stedfast faith in Christ our Saviour; amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men; so shall ye be meet partakers of those holy mysteries. And above all things ye must give most humble and hearty thanks to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ, both God and man; who did humble himself, even to the death upon the Cross, for us miserable sinners, which lay in darkness and shadow of death; that he might make us the children of God, and exalt us to everlasting life. And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, thus dying for us, and the innumerable benefits which by his precious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us; he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of his love, and continual remembrance of his death, to our great and endless comfort. To him therefore, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, let us give (as we are most bounden) continual thanks; submitting ourselves wholly to his holy will and pleasure, and studying to serve him in true holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. Amen.

As members walk into the movie theater or auditorium for services, the pastor and his wife are in the front row, singing along and pumping their fists to loud pop music, played by a live band featuring electric guitars.

Suburban megachurches, move over. There’s a hipper game in town.

“We know a lot of people have left their mainline churches because it’s boring,” said Tory Farina, 31, lead pastor at High Point Church in Inver Grove Heights. “They felt they were forced to go. We want them to love it….Our Sunday services feel like a concert.”

High Point, which currently meets in an Inver Grove Heights movie theater, is a small portion of an exploding religious movement in the Twin Cities and nationally.

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The Bishop seems to be putting clear blue water between us Catholics and his own flock, perhaps more clearly than he intends. It is clearly wrong for Anglican clergy to use the Roman Missal, from both an Anglican point of view and from our point of view. But I would add this: the Roman Missal, especially in the new translation, reflects a very clear belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation which Anglicans do not hold. Therefore they should not use the Missal. Or if they do hold to the doctrine of transubstantiation, they should come into the Ordinariate.

“Three priests in the Diocese have taken this step. They have followed their consciences,” remarks the Bishop speaking of the Ordinariate. Is there a third way? It would seem not. Dr Chartres, while mentioning canon law and its obligations, nevertheless makes no threats: “There will be no persecution and no creation of ritual martyrs,” he says. But the appeal to conscience and indeed logic is clear in this powerfully argued letter. You cannot be an Anglican and use the Roman Missal. It is one or the other. On that all should agree.

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The Roman Catholic Church is about to buy a beacon of Protestant televangelism.

The Crystal Cathedral, a temple of glass in Garden Grove, Calif., will be sold to the Catholic Church for $57 million ”” a decision that left some congregants furious and their future up in the air.

When the Crystal Cathedral declared bankruptcy last year, it soon became clear that the legendary building would have to be sold. There were several offers, but in the end, the church’s board favored the Catholic diocese in Orange County.

Sheila Schuller Coleman, the cathedral’s pastor, said in a videotaped message that it was the best way to save the church.

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The Pope has recently issued an invitation to Anglicans to move into full communion with the See of Rome in the Ordinariate where it is possible to enjoy the “Anglican patrimony” as full members of the Roman Catholic Church. Three priests in the Diocese have taken this step. They have followed their consciences.

For those who remain there can be no logic in the claim to be offering the Eucharist in communion with the Roman Church which the adoption of the new rites would imply. In these rites there is not only a prayer for the Pope but the expression of a communion with him; a communion Pope Benedict XVI would certainly repudiate.

At the same time rather than building on the hard won convergence of liturgical texts, the new Roman rite varies considerably from its predecessor and thus from Common Worship as well. The rationale for the changes is that the revised texts represent a more faithful translation of the Latin originals and are a return to more traditional language.

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A celebration of the 350th anniversary of Staten Island will include a service of Evensong with prayers and music from that time period on Dec. 4 at Christ Church New Brighton.

The ten Staten Island churches that are part of the Richmond Interparish Council of the Episcopal Diocese of New York will participate in the 4 p.m. service that will use the 1559 prayer book.

The Rev. Charles Howell, rector of Christ Church, will lead clergy from the other Episcopal churches. Representing the Episcopal Diocese of New York will be Suffragan Bishop Catherine Roskam and the Rev. Andrew Smith.

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In many U.S. churches today, worship musicians bang the drums for God and singers croon as if Christ were their boyfriend.

Bye-bye to Be Thou My Vision, a sixth-century Irish hymn with century-old English lyrics. Godspeed, Amazing Grace.

Nearly 50% of Protestant churches now say they use electric guitars or drums in worship, up from nearly 35% in 2000, according to the recently released Faith Communities Today study of 14,000 congregations.

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The statement was the direct result of a letter sent by 59 leading pastors to all active bishops, asking the Council to address the then 900 pastors who had pledged to perform gay marriages, contrary to the Discipline….

Since the letter was sent, more than 2,500 pastors have added their names to the letter and more than 12,000 laypersons have signed an even more pointed statement at the website
www.faithfulumc.com. As reticent as the Council has been in the past to address the topic of homosexuality in any sort of unified way””even as it was tearing the church apart””it is obvious that the letter and the 14,500 signatures were effective in motivating the Bishops to do what they should have done long ago.
We are grateful to the Council for issuing a statement and to the thousands of United Methodists who asked them to do so.

So we have a statement. That’s the good news. The statement itself””well, that’s another story. In a 21-sentence document, two sentences deal with upholding the Discipline.

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One of the deep disagreements and divisions within the church is over the practice of homosexuality, recently heightened by a group of clergy who have declared that they will perform holy unions in opposition to the Book of Discipline. This has caused different experiences of deep pain throughout the church. As the bishops of the church, we commit ourselves to be in prayer for the whole church and for the brokenness our communities experience. Furthermore, we “implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. We commit ourselves to be in
ministry for and with all persons” (par. 161F). We will continue to offer grace upon grace to all in the name of Christ.

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While acknowledging the denomination’s “deep disagreements” over homosexuality, the United Methodist Council of Bishops promised to uphold church law banning same-sex unions in a letter released Nov. 11.

“As bishops chosen, consecrated and assigned by the Church, we declare once again our commitment to be faithful to this covenant we have made,” the letter said. “As the Council of Bishops we will uphold the Book of Discipline as established by General Conference.”

The bishops’ statement marked the first time the council as a body has addressed the pledges to bless same-sex unions signed this year by more than 1,000 United Methodist clergy across the United States. In the New York Annual (regional) Conference, 732 lay people also have signed “a covenant of conscience” in support of such unions.

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Got the blues? Go to church.

A new study in the Journal of Religion and Health suggests that ”” at least for some women of a certain age ”” there’s a link between optimism and attendance at religious services.

“We looked at the religious practices of nearly 100,000 women and ”” like it or not ”” found a strong connection between going to church or synagogue or any other house of worship and a positive outlook on life,” said Eliezer Schnall, clinical associate professor of psychology at Yeshiva University.

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Matthew Garrett makes a living from the tip of his paintbrush.

The 34-year-old paints nearly every day, re-creating scenes from the Bible and heavenly images of the risen Jesus, Christian saints and angels on wood and canvas. He carries forward the ancient tradition of Orthodox Christian iconography in a modest West Boise, Idaho, house that he shares with his wife, Lisa, and her cat, Cecelia.

Garrett has been commissioned by individuals and churches all over the country over the past 17 years, finding jobs through old-fashioned word-of-mouth and through his website. His work is in several churches, among them, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Boise.

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Although Jesus commanded his followers to go out and preach the kingdom and heal the sick (Luke 9:2), the Rev. Nigel Mumford wonders if the Episcopal Church has only gotten it half-right.

“The church has done a great job preaching the kingdom, but not a very good job of healing the sick. That’s 50 percent of what the Lord told us to do,” said Mumford, 57, director of healing ministries at Christ the King Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich, New York. “Why is it that we’re not doing it?”

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On several occasions, I have suggested that the day when we would begin our new life as a Catholic congregation was in sight, only for there to be another delay. And no doubt many of you share my frustration in seeing other groups board the Barque of Peter ahead of us. But I can assure you that at this point, every indication suggests we do not have much longer to wait. As I announced from the pulpit recently, Mount Calvary is about to enter into mediation with the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland under the guidance of Judge Joseph Kaplan. This very positive development promises to result in a final property settlement in short order.

Another encouraging sign of progress is that those who attend the… [Episcopal] service in our All Souls Chapel at 9 o’clock Sunday mornings have been informed that this service will be coming to an end this month. They will need to find another church home should they wish to remain Episcopalians. Mount Calvary has permitted this service as a gesture of goodwill, but the Diocese of Maryland has determined that it can no longer be justified for the very small number of people who attend. This, I believe, is a tacit acknowledgement that in the near future, only the Catholic Mass will be celebrated at Mount Calvary”¦

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A dozen people sat in a circle in a small meeting room beside the darkened sanctuary of St. Barnabas Church on Hikes Lane on a recent weekday morning, practicing new readings that will mark the biggest and most controversial overhaul of Roman Catholic liturgy in decades next month.

They gave a test run to a revised version of the confession of sins. They softly struck their chests with their fists as they read the repentance for sins committed through “my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.”

Many hadn’t made that gesture in nearly half a century, when they had used the Latin phrase, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Since the Mass began to be recited in English, that clause, and the chest-striking, had been dropped from the confession of sin.

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Still, the numbers don’t lie. Men are staying away from church. The reasons are undoubtedly complex, but perhaps a clue can be found in a Christian group that attracts men and women in roughly equal numbers: Eastern Orthodoxy. A cynic might say that men are attracted to Orthodoxy because it is conservative, with an all-male clergy, many of them sporting beards. The finding of religion journalist Frederica Mathewes-Green, however, is closer to the truth. She surveyed male adult converts and discovered that Orthodoxy’s main appeal is that it’s “challenging.” One convert said, “Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it is also about overcoming myself.” Another said that he was sick of “bourgeois, feel-good American Christianity.”

Yes, some churchgoers are satisfied with feel-good Christianity, but I think many Christians””women and men””yearn for a more costly, demanding, life-changing discipleship. Perhaps women are more patient when they don’t find it, or more discerning of the deeper cross-bearing opportunities that lie beneath the candied surface. Men take a walk or hang around the church coffeepot talking in jargon about football: another disciplined and costly arena of life in which people sacrifice their bodies and their individual desires for a larger cause that matters to them, at least for the moment. Near transcendence is preferable to no transcendence at all.

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