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.

Read it carefully and read it all.

The ten year average for POF is 2638. We have surpassed the ten year average over the past two years. Among most Conferences, the goal is simply to slow the decline. North Alabama has dared to pray for more. And it is deeply gratifying to see visible evidence of the Holy Spirit moving among us. Behind every one of these numbers is a family reached, a person saved, a soul that is welcomed and included into the family of faith. And behind every number is a congregation and a pastor who is not threatened by our Wesleyan ethos of accountability and growth but is excited that we are focused on “the main thing” ”“ salvation of the world in Jesus Christ.

“You only count what is important and whatever you count becomes important,” says one of our slogans. By counting every week the new life that God gives us, we are making that new life the engine that is driving our church life. Not content to care for the needs of who is already there, our churches are reaching out to those who are not.

Take a look.

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.

Read it all.

Jim Henderson is a recovering evangelist. Back in his soul-chasing, church-starting days, he began hearing a grating dissonance between his faith in Jesus and the way he went about winning new converts. Henderson realized he was doing unto others what he would never want done unto him. He was manipulating conversations to set up a pitch. Viewing people as potential notches on his evangelism belt rather than fellow sojourners and prospective friends. Listening only to the extent it could reveal an argumentative opening. He realized he hated the whole enterprise.

“I told the people in my church, ‘I don’t like evangelizing, and I know you hate it, so I’ve decided that I’m formally resigning from witnessing. You’re all free to do so the same,’ ” Henderson recalls. “I said, ‘I love Jesus, you love Jesus, and we all want to connect people with Jesus. But we’re gonna have to figure out new ways to do it.’ ”

In the 15 years since, Henderson has blazed a new path as an innovator, author, church-evaluator, self-professed subversive, and leader in the creation of new ways to be publicly and persuasively Christian in the 21st century. Maybe the most subversive ”” and sensible ”” surprise of all is the population to which this well-caffeinated Seattle man has turned for partners, friends and teachers: atheists.

Read it all.

Christians should seek to draw those of other religious traditions to faith in Christ, a new Church of England report says.

The report, Sharing the Gospel of Salvation (GS Misc 956, £9, from Church House Bookshop), states that there is nothing new or abnormal about the Church of England’s witnessing to other faiths, and offers examples of how this can be done sensitively in a multifaith society.

The report was commissioned by the Bishops after they were asked by the Synod to set out their understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in a multifaith society, and to offer examples of good practice in sharing the gospel. This followed the debate in February 2009 of a private member’s motion from Paul Eddy about evangelism among people of other faiths.

The report, drafted by a small group led by the Bishop of Willes­den, the Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and the Bishop of Birmingham’s adviser on interfaith relations, the Revd Dr Toby Howarth, was commended by the House of Bishops’ meeting in May.

Read it all.

Grace Baptist Church in Springfield, Tenn., was in tough straits two years ago.

The church had gone 12 months without a pastor. Sunday morning attendance hovered around 120. And, in 2008, the Southern Baptist congregation baptized only three people.

That changed last year when a new pastor and a new approach to ministry led to 53 baptisms and 200 new people showing up on Sundays.

Read it all.

The question put to the Rev. Michael Barlowe is on the minds of many Utahns as they quiz four candidates for bishop:

“Where do you see the Episcopal Church in Utah in three years?”

Barlowe’s answer, given recently to a group of Episcopalians in Ogden, is both a joke about the state’s culture and a wish — and it is greeted with applause:

“I’m not the prophet,” he says. “But I would hope we’d be a much larger church.”

Indeed, growing the church is very much on the minds of Utah Episcopalians as they come to the end of an 18-month process of selecting a new bishop to replace the Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish, Utah’s 10th Episcopal bishop.

Read it all.

At a Mass for more than 100,000 people in Portugal, Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics to re-evangelize society by witnessing the joy and hope of the Gospel in every sector of contemporary life.

“Today’s pastoral priority is to make each Christian man and woman a radiant presence of the Gospel perspective in the midst of the world, in the family, in culture, in the economy, in politics,” the pope said May 11 at an open-air liturgy in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital.

To evangelize effectively, he said, Catholics themselves need to grow closer to Christ.

“Bear witness to all of the joy that his strong yet gentle presence evokes, starting with your contemporaries. Tell them that it is beautiful to be a friend of Jesus and that it is well worth following him,” he said.

Read it all.

Develop younger lay and ordained leaders with an emphasis on reaching younger generations of unchurched people. In the 10 years since Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold announced this as a priority, the average age of seminarians has risen by nearly 10 years. We clearly need to do a better job of identifying and developing younger leaders who have hearts to reach their generations for Christ and for the Episcopal Church. A key tool would be to create a Mission Training Center for these leaders and recruit our most successful, innovative, and creative leaders to provide the training.

Start new congregations using proven innovative methods to reach newer and younger communities for the Church.New church planting continues to be the singularly most proven method for reaching the unchurched in North America. If we could learn from other churches how to move away from our Episcopal obsession with buildings, property, and parochial boundaries, we could liberate those new leaders to seek the lost ”” or those lost to the Church. The Church of England is doing very creative work in this area through Fresh Expressions, much of which can be translated into the North American scene.

Intentionally identify 10 to 20 percent of congregations that demonstrate a readiness for revitalization and give them the leadership and tools to accomplish this.The key word here is readiness….

Read it all.

A major motive for being a Christian and participating in its rituals and disciplines is about to collapse. This is going to make a lot of Christians panic, but I believe the recent development will be all to the good.

The development is the discovery that hallucinogenic drugs can give people an experience seemingly identical to powerful religious experiences. A recent New York Times article by John Tierney describes the experience of retired clinical psychologist Clark Martin. Martin had been treated for depression for years, but counseling and antidepressants did nothing to help. At age 65, he enrolled in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school that gave people psilocybin, a psychoactive ingredient found in some mushrooms.

When Martin was administered the drug, he says, “All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating ”¦ . Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone….”

His experience, writes Tierney, is not all that unusual, and he says, “Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate.”

Read it all.

In this season of baptisms, and given that he’s a bishop, it seems strange to hear the Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel speak proudly of the time he talked some parents out of baptizing their child.

He was convinced the parents were doing it only because other family members insisted.

And that, says Rickel, who is preaching this Easter Sunday at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle, is dumbing down the faith.

“My goal is not to baptize as many people (as I can) so I can count them up as Episcopalians,” he said. “My goal is to have an authentic faith that people can really articulate and understand.”

Read it all.

March 30, 2010
Tuesday in Holy Week
Diocesan House

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I received a phone call from the Reverend Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew’s, Mt. Pleasant, the day before yesterday, Sunday, March 28, 2010, that the Vestry and members of the parish voted to leave The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church in North America.

Although I am not surprised by this decision, I am saddened by it. In fact there is a poignant irony in the departure of St. Andrew’s from the Diocese and from The Episcopal Church. As bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, I receive almost daily letters and emails from people across this Church suggesting that our stance gives them encouragement to remain and persevere within TEC. Yet here at home we could not hold one of our strongest congregations. The departure of The Episcopal Church from the way of Christ and the Biblically rooted teachings of the Church has become too discordant for them to tolerate any longer.

While the ramification from their departure has yet to unfold in its entirety, I hope many among us will look for ways to continue our mutual ministry and relationships. The arrangements to be made for those within the congregation who wish to remain within the Diocese of South Carolina and The Episcopal Church will be among the subjects that I will be discussing with Steve and the parish leadership, as well as among our diocesan leaders.

By God’s grace we will keep St. Andrew’s in our prayers and work with them to find ways to cooperate in gospel mission and ministry that honors Jesus Christ and his Kingdom.

Yours in Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Mark Lawrence is Bishop of South Carolina

I have three comments. First, the concern about the plight of the Church which Canon Bird expressed during the Synod debate in February was fully justified. On 29 January the Church Times reported a further decline of two per cent in 2008 in average Sunday attendance. The average age of church members is 65.

Government forecasts are that people of 65 have an expectation of life of about 20 years, so that by 2030 roughly half of present church members will have died. Given an attendance of about one million a week, the target for recruitment, whether by Fresh Expressions or other means, must therefore be 25,000 new members a year for 20 years, just to stay where we are now.

Decline has been the unremitting state of the Church for 100 years; such a rate of recruitment therefore seems highly optimistic.

Second, outreach and mission are not the same thing. Outreach does what it says on the tin. Outreach feeds itself; it is like an octopus reaching out within the limited range of its tentacles to draw food into its mouth. Such is the nature of Fresh Expressions, whether by planting new churches or more innovative means.

Read it call from last week’s Church Times.

Twenty years ago, when Richard Edmond moved to Charleston, he came for work. Little did he know the path that would unfold. Ten years aft er arriving here, Richard became homeless. He doesn’t blame anyone but himself, and some bad
decisions he made. He has lived on the streets of Charleston for a decade.

In 2008, Richard first came to St Michael’s for the pizza meals after the 6pm services, and went on to join the men’s bible study on Sunday nights run by Doug Born. Richard often attended 2 or 3 services every Sunday. The Holy Spirit began working on him; in the fall of 2009, he attended Alpha, and even made the trek to Montreat, NC for the Holy Spirit Weekend. And that was when and where the Holy Spirit convicted him– it was time to put his new faith into action, turn his life around, quit with any form of destructive behavior, and get off the streets. When he returned to Charleston, he announced his decision to the Alpha team. It was time for a new beginning.
Word circulated among the St. Michael’s staff and several laity that Richard had decided to start anew. After several weeks, it became evident he was serious about the decision–and several people stepped in to help. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, these St. ichaelites gave time, talent, and treasure, and God used it in a big way.

Today, Richard lives at the Ansonboro house now on Society Street. He has fi led for and will soon begin receiving his Social Security retirement. Richard continues to attend AA and the Anglican Essentials course to become a member of St Michael’s Church. He will be confirmed by Bishop Lawrence this May into the Episcopal Church. And thanks to several St. Michaelites, he’s already begun accumulating the basics needed for “life under a roof.”

If you feel called to assist Richard with his life re-launch, his needs are simple, but many: He still needs: a bed, a matt ress, pillows, sheets & bedding, end table, lamp, dresser, hangers, bath mat, shower rings, dishes, silverware, plates, toaster, floor lamp, and cleaning supplies, couch and a chair. Please contact Libby Culmer or Heidi Alexander if you have items you would like to donate.

Every person is precious to the Lord. Thanks be to God that Richard has found his way home!

You can see a picture of Richard here (page 10).

I’m not saying Christians are more to blame than Muslims for the world’s diverse Christian-Muslim tensions. In Nigeria, for example, the intensity of Christian proselytizing comes partly from past persecution by a Muslim majority; the Christians seek safety in numbers, so the bigger their numbers, the better. (Griswold explained this to me, and confirmed that, yes, assertive Christian proselytizing exacerbates tensions in Nigeria.)

Still, even if proselytizing isn’t the prime mover, my guess is that it pretty consistently falls in the “not helpful” category from the point of view of world peace and, ultimately, American security. And some of it ”” e.g., the “Camel Method” ”” is particularly antagonistic. Which explains why I’m not a big fan of that first headline, “A Christian Overture to Muslims Has Its Critics.” Overtures, when effective, don’t heighten tensions.

I’d like to be able to report that the “critics” in this headline are Christians who worry about heightening tensions and so refrain from offensive proselytizing. Alas, they’re Christians who favor assertive proselytizing but are offended by any suggestion that Muslims and Christians might worship the same god. One of them, Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, in Lynchburg, Va., said in a recent podcast, “There’s nothing that the two gods ”” the god of the Koran and the god of scripture ”” have in common. Nothing.”

Well, to look at the bright side: Maybe that’s a basis for interfaith rapport; Caner can sit around with Malaysian Muslims and agree that they worship different gods.

Read it all.

Brian Stanley is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh, and so is the most appropriate person to write The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910. It is a meticulous, accessible, and theologically insightful account. It is doubly worth reading since the centennial of the conference will see a gathering called Edinburgh 2010.

While all historical moments are fraught, some moments are more equal than others, and the participants traveling to Edinburgh by train and ship in 1910 had a strong sense that they were attending an event of decisive significance. It was seen as a summit of strategic consequence at a time when the triumph of Christian evangelism worldwide seemed a goal one could speak of. (Stanley is careful to note that it was, in fact, less than a truly “world missionary conference,” since Roman Catholics and Orthodox were not present, and Two-Thirds World Christians themselves were badly underrepresented).

John Mott, whose famous watchword was “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation,” led one of the conference’s commissions, and even Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the initially reluctant opening speaker, could allude to the consummation which that evangelization hastened. To be sure, the theological makeup of the conference was complex, with more scholarly and theologically liberal as well as evangelical voices represented, especially in the commission on relations to non-Christian religions.

Read it all.

Men like [James] Naismith and [Luther ] Gulick sought to develop the whole person””mind, body and spirit””and the YMCA emblem, an inverted red triangle, symbolized their threefold purpose. As Gulick stated, “Christ’s kingdom should include the athletic world.” From their beginning in 1851, YMCAs on college and university campuses had tremendous participation nationwide. Close to 50,000 men were enrolled in YMCA college Bible studies by 1905. There were 1,000 men at Yale alone in 1909.

One notable characteristic that defined these college YMCAs””particularly those among the Ivy League schools””were their weekly “deputations,” or local mission trips. Groups of college students ministered to needy children in nearby urban neighborhoods and rural areas. These trips would last three or four days and included musical entertainment, sporting events and Christian instruction, both in the schools and from the pulpits of local churches. On a February 1911 trip to New Hampshire, 43 out of 70 boys enrolled at Kimbell Union Academy embraced the Christian faith. Weeks later at a church visit in London, N.H., the official deputation logs recorded an eyewitness account from Dartmouth student Cedric Francis (class of 1912): “One very touching case was where it was through the young boy of the family that the mother and father were led to Christ.”

This was the generation of the Student Volunteer Movement which sought to reach the world for Christ “in this generation.” Basketball served as an important evangelical tool for many during its first 50 years. In his 1941 book “Basketball: Its Origin and Development,” Naismith wrote, “Whenever I witness games in a church league, I feel that my vision, almost half a century ago, of the time when the Christian people would recognize the true value of athletics, has become a reality.”

Read it all.

On Feb. 3, Ergun Caner, president of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, in Lynchburg, Va., focused attention on a Southern Baptist controversy when he called Jerry Rankin, the president of the denomination’s International Mission Board, a liar. Dr. Caner has since apologized for his language, but he still maintains that the “Camel Method,” a strategy Dr. Rankin endorses for preaching Christianity to Muslims, is deceitful.

Instead of talking about the Jesus of the New Testament, missionaries using the Camel Method point Muslims to the Koran, where in the third chapter, or sura, an infant named Isa ”” Arabic for Jesus ”” is born. Missionaries have found that by starting with the Koran’s Jesus story, they can make inroads with Muslims who reject the Bible out of hand. But according to Dr. Caner, whose attack on Dr. Rankin came in a weekly Southern Baptist podcast, the idea that the Koran can contain the seeds of Christian faith is “an absolute, fundamental deception.”

David Garrison, a missionary who edited a book on the Camel Method by Kevin Greeson, the method’s developer, defends the use of the Koran as a path to Jesus. “You aren’t criticizing Muhammad or any other prophets,” Dr. Garrison said, “just raising Jesus up.”

Read it all.

On Feb. 3, Ergun Caner, president of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, in Lynchburg, Va., focused attention on a Southern Baptist controversy when he called Jerry Rankin, the president of the denomination’s International Mission Board, a liar. Dr. Caner has since apologized for his language, but he still maintains that the “Camel Method,” a strategy Dr. Rankin endorses for preaching Christianity to Muslims, is deceitful.

Instead of talking about the Jesus of the New Testament, missionaries using the Camel Method point Muslims to the Koran, where in the third chapter, or sura, an infant named Isa ”” Arabic for Jesus ”” is born. Missionaries have found that by starting with the Koran’s Jesus story, they can make inroads with Muslims who reject the Bible out of hand. But according to Dr. Caner, whose attack on Dr. Rankin came in a weekly Southern Baptist podcast, the idea that the Koran can contain the seeds of Christian faith is “an absolute, fundamental deception.”

David Garrison, a missionary who edited a book on the Camel Method by Kevin Greeson, the method’s developer, defends the use of the Koran as a path to Jesus. “You aren’t criticizing Muhammad or any other prophets,” Dr. Garrison said, “just raising Jesus up.”

Read it all.

Faced with declining enrolment and revenue that will force it to shutter churches on Vancouver Island, the Anglican Church is turning to the social medium where millions of followers already flock: Twitter.

The Anglican Diocese of British Columbia last weekend voted to close seven churches outright and move those congregations to “hub churches.” The meeting, during which several members tweeted updates to followers, came on the heels of an ominous recent report that predicted that the once powerful church was headed for extinction unless dramatic changes occur.

In addition to recommending that churches close, the report described Canada as a post-Christian society and urged a change in attitude to attract new members, including embracing modern forms of evangelism.

Read it all.

If turning around a declining church were easy, more declining churches would be reversing course.

And if Christians in the United States think turning around a church is difficult, think of trying it in the Church of England, where tradition reaches back hundreds of years and hierarchical structure often hamstrings changes local congregations want to make.

But Bob and Mary Hopkins believe fresh expressions””a term they prefer over “revitalizing a congregation”””can come even to Anglican churches in the United Kingdom.

Although they began””and continue””as church planters in urban settings with Anglican Church Planting Initiatives, from 1998 to 2005, the Hopkins served on the leadership team of St. Thomas’ Church in Sheffield, which grew to 1,500 in attendance, primarily reaching young adults with emerging culture interests.

They acknowledge cultural differences between the United Kingdom and the United States, but they emphasize that differences favor American churches. According to the Hopkins, culture in the United Kingdom is more influenced by secular atheism and is further into an era being called post-Christendom. The Brits have fewer megachurches and a greater percentage of smaller congregations. In addition, their congregations are attended by older people””average age 61””with fewer financial resources.

Read it all.

Southern Baptists need to repent of their pride, boasting and disunity and return to God and His vision.

That was the sobering call Dr. Ronnie Floyd made Monday as he presented a highly anticipated report charting out a new course for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“We (task force) have been gripped by the reality of the lost condition of our world and about our condition as a denomination, but through this journey we have also been set on fire by the call of God to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Floyd, chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, stated in a progress report. “Surely Southern Baptists can agree that we need a new and compelling vision for the future.”

Read it all.

In the mainline churches, which is what I know best, the political views leaders express are generally those of what could be called the ”˜foundation left’ ”” emotionally grounded in concern for the poor and development, historically linked to the ”˜new left’ mix of economic and social concerns as developed in the 1960’s, shaped by an atmosphere of privilege and entitlement that reflects the upper middle class background of the educated professionals who run these institutions. The social sins they deplore are those of the right: excessive focus on capitalism, too robust and unheeding a promotion of the American national and security interest abroad, insufficient care for the environment, failure to help the poor through government welfare programs, failure to support affirmative action, failure to celebrate and protect the unrestricted right of women to abort. I am of course speaking very generally here and there are lots of individual exceptions, but many of these folks are generally tolerant of theological differences and rigidly intolerant when it comes to political differences: they care nothing at all about doctrines like predestination but get very angry with people who disagree with them about issues like global warming or immigration reform. Theological heresy is a matter for courtesy and silence, but political heretics fill them with bile….

Let me nail some cyber-theses to the virtual door.

1. Nobody cares what you think while your tiny church is falling apart.

In a diocese not a thousand miles from my home in glamorous Queens, there once was a bishop whose long and public battle with alcoholism rendered him unable to carry out his duties. For years and years this diocese suffered under grievous mismanagement and its rotten condition was an open scandal widely discussed and lamented throughout the national church. Yet in the general shipwreck of his episcopacy, this bishop (or what remained of the diocesan machinery) somehow managed to get ”˜prophetic’ statements out on political causes of various kinds. So far as I know, none of these statements ever had any impact on anyone’s thinking anywhere on Planet Earth.

This poor bishop, now thankfully retired, was an extreme case, but why, exactly, would any sane person today pay attention to the political pronouncements of an Episcopal bishop? Episcopalians are a tiny minority of the population and the church long ago lost its social power and cachet. The Episcopal church today is in the worst condition it has been since the aftermath of the Revolution; its clergy has visibly failed to keep the church together or prevent its ongoing decline. I’m afraid that the penchant to make political pronouncements proceeds less from a true prophetic vocation than from a nostalgia for a time when it mattered what Episcopal bishops thought. In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than a proprietor of a failing concern who officiously lectures everyone else on how to manage their affairs. Please, for the sake of what remains of the dignity of your office, give it a rest….

Read it all.

A mobile phone suspended on a belt round the waist or from the neck is a common sight among members of church congregations in Africa.

Now, church leaders are heaping praise on mobile phones, sometimes called cell phones, because they say the instruments help congregations grow.

Mobile phone use increased rapidly in Africa about 10 years ago. At that time, however, some Christians on the continent criticised the phones for being “marks of materialism.” Now, that has changed.

“It is as if cell phones have come to revolutionise everything, even Christianity,” says Anglican Bishop Charles Gaita of Nyahururu in central Kenya. “They are making things happen quickly.”

Read it all.

During his statistic-laden hour-long report, Kirk Hadaway, the church’s program officer for congregational research, told the council that congregations grow when they are in growing communities; have a clear mission and purpose; follow up with visitors; have strong leadership; and are involved in outreach and evangelism.

Congregations decline, he said, when their membership is older and predominantly female; are in conflict, particularly over leadership and where worship is “rote, predictable and uninspiring.”

The primary source of the statistics for Hadaway’s report is the canonically required (Canon 1.6.1) information filed annually with diocesan bishops by each congregation. The so-called parochial reports are due by March 1 of the following year. An example of the sort of information gathered is available here. Hadaway analyzed the data received to compile a variety of statistical reports and also cited a variety of surveys of church members that he and others have conducted.

The 2008 parochial reports show overall church membership at 2,225,682 people, with a total average Sunday attendance (ASA) at 747,376. Those totals compare with 2007 membership of 2,285,143 and total ASA at 768,476. The dioceses in the United States saw a 2.8 percent drop in membership and a 3.1 percent decrease in ASA. Overall church membership — including 10 non-U.S. dioceses — was down 2.6 percent and attendance dropped 2.7 percent for the entire church.

Read it all.

She sings the litany. He delivers the sermon.

It is Sunday morning at All Saints Episcopal Church in Sacramento and both the Revs. Michael and Betsey Monnot preside over the worship services, one of several ways the church keeps down expenses.

“We trade off duties every week,” said Betsey Monnot.

The two priests, who are married and have two children and another due in three weeks, said the church could afford one full-time clergyperson. So they agreed to job-share and serve as co-rectors.

“When you’re a small church, you have to be creative,” said Michael Monnot.

Read it all.

Can you explain the entrepreneurial zeal of the Redeemed Christian Church? They want to grow, and they are growing.

They are growing. Growth equals life equals health equals prosperity at its most basic. Religion is about living an abundant life either here or the hereafter. Growth is necessary for that. The other thing is, to put this in the context of immigrant religion, in Boston, a supposedly highly secular city, a new church has been founded every 20 days. Most people don’t realize this. They think New England is secular. These are immigrant churches, storefront churches. This is the American way of building civic society, coming together for voluntary groups, helping each other, and then growth becomes a way to be prosperous in this American context of capitalism, competition, and so on.

In order to grow they have to have American followers as well as their own?

Yeah, though I don’t have the numbers, but there are hundreds of thousands of Nigerians in the United States, so you can start with Nigerians and work outwards. It can also be a unitive experience among Nigerians of different ethnicities. You have to remember Nigeria is a multiethnic country. So first if you can start with your own ethnic group of Nigerians and then expand outward, you can first build out to other Nigerians and then to Ghanains or people of other West African countries and keep moving out to North Americans.

Read it all.

In Georges Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest, the elderly Curé de Torcy gives his young priest friend a bit of advice about proclaiming the Gospel: “The Word of God is a red-hot iron,” he says. “Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes later.”

One could probably craft a meditation on the state of the Catholic soul today in terms of the tension between those two values — truth and comfort. We want the church to offer comfort, which among other things implies that Catholics shouldn’t brutalize one another in internal tribal warfare. Yet we also want the church to be bold in proclaiming the truth that saves, which inevitably means that sometimes lines have to be drawn and feelings may be bruised.

The $64,000 question is, can we do both? Can the Catholic church be both the “sacrament of the unity of the human race” and a fearless evangelical force?

Read it all.

Through his half-hour speech at the DeSoto Savannah Hilton, [Bishop Scott] Benhase set ministerial goals and addressed the diocese’s financial struggles.

Revenue in 2010 was expected to decline 4 percent, mostly due to a smaller carry-forward from the previous year, according to a financial report posted on the diocese’s Web site.

The budget showed tithing – described as “pledges”- remained about the same.

“Some of the financial challenges we face are due to the larger economic recession in which this country still suffers,” he said.

But some problems preceded the recession, he said.

“It’s been there much longer. We’ve been drawing on past financial reserves to fund current ministry. This must stop.”

Read it all.

Fr. Sexton cited an idea from Diana Butler Bass that worshipers are less interested in a church with answers than in one that accepts them as they ask questions.

“I think there is much truth to her statements, and my biggest fear for our church is and has been that we will allow it to remain in its complacency and continue to be distracted (sex) and insulated (who’s in, who’s out),” he wrote. “I believe we do need to become passionate, imaginative, open, justice seeking, inclusive, and loving communities of faith that actually live as if we believed our baptismal promises were important. ”¦ We need to once again be motivated by the fire of the Holy Spirit.”

Ms. Watson expressed delight that the diocese placed such an emphasis on the question of evangelism.

“I know that the only reason that my family and I enjoy the abundance of life we do today is because of the transformative power of Christ’s love as we have experienced it through the Episcopal Church,” she wrote.

Read the whole thing.