Wrestling with dramatic changes in how Americans practice their faith, many clergy members are willing to wait months to get guidance from Gallagher or someone like him. These consultants have become a small industry, roaming the country to challenge the definition of “church.”

When they work with congregations, they put everything on the table ¿ including whether the pastor and the church building are even necessary. Perhaps worshippers could meet in a movie theater instead. Or consider sharing a pastor with some other church. Or ditch their Sunday morning services for a time more people would find convenient.

Consultants routinely press their clients to stop being so fixated on their real estate, routines and rules. They argue that there are plenty of people who don’t have any interest in sitting in pews and listening to sermons. The challenge is to come up with a way to engage them.

“The role of the church and the clergy is dying, but I think it needs to,” says Tom Brackett, another minister-consultant who works on church development for the Episcopal Church. “The church doesn’t have a mission. We are part of God’s mission.”

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The idea of an open conversation about death isn’t exactly trendy these days, not that it ever really was. Emily Dickinson once said, “Death is a dialogue between the spirit and the dust.” The famous American novelist William Somerset Maugham said, “Death doesn’t affect the living because it hasn’t happened yet.”

But maybe they were wrong. Maybe a conversation with one’s mortality, and with the people who will experience it alongside the dying, is exactly what people need to lessen the fear and the complicated burdens on those who are left behind.

Michael Barham, associate priest at St. Clement Episcopal Church, feels that death needs to be talked about openly. He and his colleagues believe that when a person doesn’t prepare for the inevitable, the experience becomes clinical and impersonal, leaving no room to grieve.

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A lot can happen in one year.

For the people of St. Luke’s, 365 days has meant a lot of grieving. It has given the church new focus. And, most importantly, it has allowed for a lot of healing to take place. One year ago on Sunday, St. Luke’s held its first service in a small chapel at Glendale Seventh-day Adventist Church, just across Valejo Drive from Glendale Adventist Medical Center, after losing its facilities in a lengthy lawsuit brought by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. That Sunday’s service was not unlike any other service I’ve been to at St. Luke’s: While there was music, prayer, fellowship and the usual assortment of families with their kids in tow, everyone knew that an important milestone was taking place.

Today, they are still in that chapel. But one could say that St. Luke’s ”” or by its newly incorporated name, Crescenta Valley Anglican Church ”” is spiritually wiser because of what members have gone through. This past weekend I had an opportunity to sit down with the Rev. Rob Holman, rector of St. Luke’s Anglican Church….

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A group of young adults are living at Christ Church on Broadway but working in the city that surrounds it, extending the tradition of service on which the parish was founded in 1854.

The new program is called St. Hilda’s House, and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will dedicate it at a High Mass at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The seven first-year interns are volunteering at St. Martin de Porres Academy, Christian Community Action, the Your Place youth center at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Chapel on the Green, Community Soup Kitchen and Christ Church, serving lunch, coordinating volunteers, leading after-school teen activities and holding Bible study.

Most, but not all, are considering becoming priests.

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With the London Olympics less than two years away, in Southwark Diocese work has begun to engage with the mission opportunities presented by the games.

A Diocesan Olympic coordinating group was formed in 2009, with local clergy from each of the four Olympic sites (Greenwich Peninsula, Greenwich Park, Woolwich and Wimbledon), plus representatives from the Board of Education, Youth & Children’s Group, Mission Department, Southwark Cathedral, Communication and Resources – and two former Olympic athletes, Lorna Boothe from Mitcham and Shaun Lightman from Selsdon.

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At first, the concept of “Undie Sunday” unsettled some members of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Tighty-whiteys and the Lord’s house, after all, are not a natural fit.

“Some of the older people were saying, ‘How can you talk about underwear in church?’ — but once they realized there was such a need, everyone got around it,” church member and collection organizer Lelia Druzdis said.

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Five years after Hurricanes Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, survivors and those working on their behalf say work is far from finished.

Church World Service says that what progress has been made is in great part due to the support, funding and labour of the US faith community and of humanitarian agencies.

“If it weren’t for the volunteers and agencies who assisted me, I don’t know where I would be,” said Gloria Mouton, 62, whose home in New Orleans East was among those repaired by volunteers from across the US during the 2009 CWS Neighborhood New Orleans ecumenical project.

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Using a two-sides-of-the-coin approach ”” traditional liturgy and social outreach ”” St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Hollywood, has found success in a transitory neighborhood and an often anti-religious culture. In the process, it has become a model for catechetical training, new-member retention and fundraising.

“If you want snobby ”˜privileged at prayer’ go to Beverly Hills,” said longtime parishioner Michael Ensign. “We’re a funny little outpost at Hollywood and Gardner; a real ship of fools. But we’re clear about who we are. We’re messy and very human, but in messiness is God.”

Ensign has been at the church for 22 years. He is a career actor and veteran of too many movies and television series to list (including Big Love, CSI, and Boston Legal).

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KIM LAWTON, correspondent: About 20 minutes outside New Orleans, worshippers gather at First Baptist Church in Chalmette, the largest city in St. Bernard Parish. It’s a pretty typical Southern Baptist Sunday morning service.

REV JOHN DEE JEFFRIES (Preaching at First Baptist Church, Chalmette, Louisiana): Lord, what’s going on? Lord, why?

LAWTON: But that belies the incredible journey this congregation has made since Hurricane Katrina. More than half of the churches in St. Bernard Parish still haven’t come back, and most of them probably never will. First Baptist is not only back, but reinventing itself to help a community still struggling to recover.

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Christ Church uses remarkably simple equipment to take prayer to the people in southeast Schenectady, New York.

I arrived at the church at 9 a.m. with Torre Bissell and we set up a 4-by-4 folding table with five chairs.

“Put it here,” Torre said, pointing to the crack in the sidewalk that must have been the property line. “That way no one can say we’re on the sidewalk. And point chairs this way, facing out. That way people don’t feel trapped.”

And that was it. A laminated sign reading “Prayer Table” flapped from the front. Torre pulled out a pen and paper and jotted down my name and his and the day’s date. Then he pulled out a bag of wooden crosses and laid out a few along with a thin paperback English Standard Version New Testament.

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In today’s world of instant access to news, mission agencies may feel compelled to “do something” when danger arises. Although the Bible gives examples of varying responses to danger, the mission agencies’ “something,” more often than not, may be to encourage or order an evacuation. What might have been a God-appointed time to embrace suffering and those who suffer may be prematurely aborted.

According to a United Nations study, “The World at War,” increasing areas of the world are involved in “intrastate wars” where 75 percent of the victims are noncombatants. That figure represents a staggering story of human suffering and enormous needs.

I can remember two occasions when we and others stayed “in the same boat,” as it were, with people caught in conflict and suffering. On one occasion we had to stay; it soon became too late to leave. On the other occasion we had a choice, and we chose to stay.

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When I was in seminary, I wrote a killer essay on baptism. The assignment was to write a detailed parish newsletter column explaining baptism and the process for preparing infants, children and adults for the sacrament. I pulled out all the stops, wrote just what my liturgics professor wanted to read, and, had the essay actually been printed in the newsletter, I would’ve had to officiate at far more funerals than baptisms as a result of boring parishioners to death.

It’s safe to say there’s a difference between theory and practice, between seminary and ministry. I know this because the past few baptisms I’ve celebrated haven’t exactly followed the outline I dazzled my professor with. They’ve been better.

Working as a chaplain for Hospice at Home has reminded me that at life’s end, people think about tying up loose ends, and for some that loose end is baptism. I was working with a family and two of the daughters of a man who was dying said that he, his wife and another daughter hadn’t been baptized and they thought that the three of them should receive the sacrament before their father died. One thing that’s very important in providing spiritual care for the dying and their families is not to push any agenda or bias I (or the family) may have; rather it is to explore what’s meaningful for the patient and assist him or her in finding it. So we talked about baptism for a few minutes, and they decided they wanted to be baptized; and with the patient in bed and his wife and their daughter at his bedside, I asked the other daughters to find the nicest bowl in the kitchen and fill it with water from the tap. Then we gathered in a circle, and I blessed the water and baptized them.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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An attack on a Christian aid group in Afghanistan that left 10 medical workers dead a week ago underscores the perils of faith-based organizations that operate in Muslim nations and the perception that they are promoting a Western agenda.

Six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton working for the International Assistance Mission were gunned down in northern Badakhshan province in what Afghan officials say is the worst such attack in the country’s history. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the medical workers were trying to convert Muslims and were carrying Bibles written in Dari, one of the country’s two main languages.

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Members of the Mennonite church first came together 90 years ago to ship tractors and plows to fellow Mennonite farmers in Russia and the Ukraine, starving because of war.

Later, in war-torn Vietnam, or when a tsunami ravaged Indonesia or, most recently, when an earthquake wreaked havoc in Haiti, they were there to help the general population.

The Mennonite Central Committee has evolved into a global disaster response relief and community-building enterprise.

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Earlier this year, the American Psychiatric Association released a rough draft of its new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. It’s a big book that lists all the mental disorders doctors can use to diagnose mental illness. One of the changes they’re proposing is causing controversy.

Traditionally, the manual has warned doctors away from diagnosing major depression in people who have just lost a loved one in what’s called “bereavement exclusion.” The idea was that feelings of intense pain were normal, so they shouldn’t be labeled as a mental disorder.

But the new DSM changes this….

Dr. Kenneth Kendler, who is on the committee that decided to make this change, says it’s not that the committee feels everyone who has a loss should immediately be diagnosed with depression. For Kendler, there is a clear, bright line between normal grief and clinical depression. Grief is OK ”” depression is not. Depression, by definition, is dangerous and should be treated. Grief is normal and should not.

I caught this by podcast this morning on my run–it is a very thought provoking piece. Do take the time to listen to it all if you can (just under 9 minutes). If not, read the whole thing.

A new Anglican relief agency is a step closer after a Lambeth Palace summit earlier this month.

Participants from across the Anglican Communion met with the Archbishop of Canterbury from July 12-14 to plan how to turn the proposed Alliance into reality.

Professionals from five continents working on advocacy, relief and community development programmes reviewed responses to a public consultation on the foundational document and the issues arising from them, and worked together to chart a way forward for the first few years of the Alliance.

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The church recently concluded a study of more than 32,000 Methodist congregations across North America, seeking the “key factors impacting vital congregations.” The study surveyed everybody from bishops to district superintendents to people in the pews.

Working with New York-based Towers Watson consultants, researchers constructed a “vitality index” to measure each church and concluded “that all kinds of UMC churches are vital — small, large, across
geographies, and church setting.”

The report identified four key areas that fuel vitality: small groups and programs; worship services that mix traditional and contemporary styles with an emphasis on relevant sermons; pastors who work hard on mentorship and cultivation of the laity; and an emphasis on effective lay leadership.

These four factors “are consistent regardless of church size, predominant ethnicity, and jurisdiction,” the study concluded.

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Herewith the blurb about it.

Go here and on page 3 you can find a blurb about THIS YEAR’s conference where South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence was the speaker. Doesn’t that sound worthwhile? How about considering attending next year’s conference? You can find information about it there.

Humans are body, mind and spirit. A body is something we can see, weigh, touch, and even decorate. A mind we can see in operation. We can measure intelligence and observe the inner workings of the brain through modern imaging.

There is, however, no CT scan of the spirit. Like the wind, it cannot be seen, but it is a strong force in our lives. We see evidence of the spirit in a parent’s love for a child. It motivates heroes, fuels curiosity of a scientist and sustains a Holocaust survivor. We see signs of the spirit in the mother who cannot recall her child’s name but can recite the 23rd Psalm and in the musician who cannot sing along with other residents in the nursing home but can whistle previously learned complex tunes.

There is still a person beneath the cloak of dementia. As an Episcopal priest who frequently interacts with people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, I ask myself, “How can we nourish the soul of someone whose memories are no longer accessible?” After 32 years of ordained ministry, I have found the answer lies in attentive and discerning listening. People with dementia will tell us how to nourish their souls, but we need to listen carefully.

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As a young religion journalist 25 years ago in Houston, Julia Duin joined an Episcopal charismatic community that was repairing ruined buildings and ruined lives.

But, after following the Community of Celebration to Beaver County, where she attended Trinity School for Ministry, she became disenchanted. Her 1992 master’s thesis documented abuse of authority within the community, and the role of its founder, the Rev. Graham Pulkingham, in spreading a highly authoritarian theology to other charismatic communities nationwide. Months later she amended it to include evidence of sexual misconduct by Father Pulkingham, who was under suspension from ministry when he died suddenly in 1993.

Now Ms. Duin has written a book, “Days of Fire and Glory” (Crossland Press $24.95) which weaves a tale both soaring and sordid of the community’s rise and fall. She will speak Sunday at 9:30 a.m. in St. Thomas-in-the-Field Church (Anglican), in Richland.

“I’m not trashing [the idea of] community,” said Ms. Duin, who covers religion for The Washington Times. “But I would like the book to be a template so that if people do try to live out the New Testament vision of community again, they don’t repeat the same mistakes.”

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Music plays an important part in the life of Graham Bolton whether it be singing in the choir at St Anne’s Church in Tottington, boosting the bass section at Bury Choral Society or enjoying a trip to the opera.

But next month will see him take on a musical challenge that is very close to his heart to raise money for Bury Hospice and for the charity Salve, which helps street children in Uganda.

Graham, aged 58, had planned to sing a psalm at Canterbury on behalf of a member of the congregation at St Anne’s where he has been a regular for nearly 20 years and in the choir for 10 years. His wife, Susan, is a church warden.

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As oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, churches and religious organizations along the Louisiana coast are providing food, money and support to parishioners whose livelihoods hang in the balance.

More than 7 million gallons of oil have contaminated the Gulf since an oil rig explosion on April 20, pulling the region’s fishing industry to a screeching halt. It’s been particularly hard for churches like St. Patrick Catholic Church in Port Sulphur, La., where many parishioners are fishermen.

The Rev. Gerard Stapleton and his staff at St. Patrick’s have distributed food and $100 vouchers to 300 families in his congregation affected by the oil spill.

“It could very easily … destroy our way of life which generations have enjoyed,” Stapleton said. “This is one of the top 10 areas in the United States for fishing.”

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The Rev. Brett Webb-Mitchell of Chapel Hill, N.C., is a nationally recognized author and advocate for people with disabilities. His new book, “Beyond Accessibility: Toward Full Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Faith Communities,” is an attempt to delineate what a congregation might look like if it valued the talents of every member, regardless of ability.

An interview:

Q: Why did you want to write another book on people with disabilities?

A: This was an unfinished project. It began when I was asked to be a writer and consultant for the Presbyterian Church (USA) in helping write their policy on people with disabilities. When you write for a large committee, you don’t always get to say what you want to say. I wanted to suggest in this book what it would look like to be a fully inclusive faith community in which labels such as “abled” and “disabled” are secondary to being members with one another in a faith community.

Q: What congregations do a good job in including people with disabilities and what congregations need help?

A: There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to being fully inclusive. Some places will use a sign-language interpreter. Some places will actively include a person with developmental disabilities in a leadership position. The tricky part is helping faith communities be open to all who want to enter their community.

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Stricken with schizophrenia 30 years ago, [Mr Harris] Ng recovered from the illness and overcame its stigma by a combination of medication and faith.

“Medication alone can only help us to stabilise,” he said. “We need the strength to carry on to be financially independent and to reintegrate back into society, to lift up our face, smile at people, and not to feel the stigma that we are a mental case.”

For Ng, believing in a God of love gives him strength, confidence and purpose.

It was his Christian faith that helped him come to terms with his mental illness.

Feeling very shameful about his condition, Ng would once deny that he was mentally ill and reject medication.

The turning point came when he went for counselling over 20 years ago with the Singapore Anglican Community Services, then known as the Anglican Welfare Services.

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Too often, church volunteers burn out while in the trenches of servanthood.

In churches where there is always a ministry to tend, a committee to lead, a class to teach or an event to chair, it is hard to find people willing to step up to the plate. When you find them, it is even harder on the church to lose them, especially if they are doing a good job.

“Brent,” who asked that he not be identified, has been a member of his church for more than 10 years. He has spent seven of those helping with the youth, ushering every Sunday, serving on the worship and finance committees, and pitching in with special programs and activities. Eventually, his church time took a toll on his work and family time.

“I looked up, and my work and family life had begun to suffer. I knew I had to let something go,” he said. Brent prayed long and hard about cutting back on his church obligations, especially working with youth.

“It was hard,” he said. “They had shared a lot with me on their mission trips and at other activities through the church.”

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Both men faced rows of loved ones still wrapped in grief after shocking tragedies.

Both men quoted the Psalms. Both concluded with visions of eternal life and heavenly reunions. Both referred to familiar songs that offered comfort.

Facing those gathered in Beckley, W.Va., to mourn the loss of 29 miners, President Barack Obama asked them to remember a rhythm and blues classic ”” “Lean on Me” ”” that had its roots in coal country life.

Songwriter Bill Withers wrote: “Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain, we all have sorrow. ”¦ Lean on me, when you’re not strong and I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry on, for it won’t be long ”˜til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.”

The Rev. Billy Graham was more daring at the 1995 prayer service for the 168 victims of the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The world’s most famous evangelist even quoted an explicitly Christian hymn.

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Based on past studies of those who avoid Christian churches, one of the driving forces behind such behavior is the painful experiences endured within the local church context. In fact, one Barna study among unchurched adults shows that nearly four out of every ten non-churchgoing Americans (37%) said they avoid churches because of negative past experiences in churches or with church people.

Bestselling author Stephen Mansfield has written a new book (ReChurch) that digs into those experiences. As one who has been wounded by past church behavior, Mansfield encourages those who have been hurt by the local church to overcome that pain and suffering ”“ if not in response to a biblical command or for the benefit of the church, then for their own healing and maturation.

Citing numerous examples, Mansfield notes that God uses people’s pain ”“ and their own immaturity, in some cases ”“ to reshape us. There is no denying that many churchgoers get wounded by the insensitive or ignorant actions of others in the church. Mansfield points out, though, that those instances are opportunities for us to love others who, like ourselves, are simply “flawed sinners.” Fleeing from the source of pain and suffering, rather than addressing and overcoming it, leaves us wounded and bitter, and does nothing to enhance our lives or those of the people responsible for that suffering.

The solution, according to Mansfield, is forgiveness….

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[DEBORAH] POTTER: At Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, parishioners are training to become caregivers.

STEPHEN MINISTRY TRAINEE: The key thing that I saw is you leaned into her. You engaged her and told her, “I’m listening to you.”

post03-stephenministriesPOTTER: They’re learning to be Stephen ministers, named for Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr who cared for the poor. Parishioners are recruited and interviewed by the pastor, then trained to offer one-to-one care to people in and around their congregation. They commit to be available as needed for two years, but many serve longer. Pam Montgomery has been involved for two decades, balancing Stephen Ministry with responsibilities at home. But sometimes the caregiver is the one who needs care.

PAM MONTGOMERY (Stephen Minister): This is my dad and my mom.

POTTER: Seven years ago, Pam’s father died of cancer. Just two weeks later she lost her grandmother. As she grappled with her grief, a friend surprised her with a suggestion: What if Pam herself asked for a Stephen minister?

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