Tensions ran high at a north Charlotte church Sunday morning as members protested Pastor Andrew Rollinson’s leadership, saying he was fired nearly three months ago but refuses to leave.

“Rollinson must go!” about a dozen people chanted outside Morningstar Baptist Church at 5623 Phillips St. “When? Today!”

Rollinson said he has no intention of leaving the church. He said the members who fired him did not follow church bylaws, and therefore the decision is invalid. He did not say how the members violated the bylaws.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/07/21/4179928/members-of-charlotte-church-protest.htmlRead it all.

…when he discovered credible evidence that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.

Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.

“I felt like I had an earthquake under my feet,” said Mr. Mattsson, now an emeritus area authority. “Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance.”

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition scored a decisive victory in an election on Sunday — so big that there are suspicions he will lose interest in difficult economic reforms and pursue his nationalist agenda instead.

The victory in the vote for parliament’s upper house gives Abe a stronger mandate for his prescription for reviving the stagnant economy. Ironically perhaps, it could also give lawmakers in his own party, some of whom have little appetite for painful but vital reforms, more clout to resist change.

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When his daughter, Lucy, goes to Charleston Catholic School next year, she will be the only student whose father comes not only for parent conferences and class parties, but also to celebrate Mass.

Ordained a Catholic priest July 7, Allen joins a small but growing group of former Episcopalians embarking on a new journey, one they hope marks a critical step down the long path to Christian unity.

They have embraced a new option in Catholicism that allows Anglicans to become fully Roman Catholic yet retain elements of their liturgical and theological traditions.

Read it all from the local paper.

When Gregory Morrison was 3, he laid his hands on the two-story home next door to his grandparents’ and prayed that his family could live there.

Over the next 10 years, the house filled up with five Morrison children, several exchange students and beloved pets who wore down a path between the two houses.

Gregory’s family walked into their house Saturday without their son and brother, who died July 12 from a rare immune disorder at age 13….[but while they were gone family members and friends from Gateway Family Church fixed up their house as a gesture of support].

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Here are five versions, blog readers are challenged to share others they know or come up with their own additional suggestions–KSH.

How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
Fourteen; one to change it and 13 to ask “what is change?”

How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
A whole Synod: one to change the bulb and the rest to debate it until the room spins.
How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?A whole congregation: One to call an electrician, the rest to talk about how much better candles used to be.

How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb? Five: One to screw in the bulb and four to form a committee to preserve the old one.

How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb? The old one is quite good enough for us and there is no need to follow worldly trends and change it.

–The Diocese in Europe (of the Church of England)

The Bill of Rights ensures Christ Church Anglican members the freedom to worship.

Different documents dictate where the congregation can build its place of worship, though.

The Rev. Marc Robertson and his flock intend to build a new sanctuary on the corner of Drayton and 37th streets. Neighbors and other Thomas Square residents opposed to the church’s plans are arguing the mid-city rezoning ordinance prohibits the facility being built as proposed.

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O Lord, who hast brought us through the darkness of night to the light of the morning, and who by thy Holy Spirit dost illumine the darkness of ignorance and sin: We beseech thee, of thy loving-kindness, to pour thy holy light into our souls; that we may ever be devoted to thee, by whose wisdom we were created, by whose mercy we were redeemed, and by whose providence we are governed; to the honour and glory of thy great name.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.

–Romans 11:33-36

In Racing Demon, David Hare’s 1990 play about the Church of England, Lionel, a troubled priest in search of answers, makes a heartfelt plea. “God. Where are you?” he asks as the curtain rises. “There are an awful lot of people in a very bad way. And they need something beside silence. Do you understand?”

Twenty years ago there was an impending drama in the church, linked to faith. Now there’s a full-blown crisis that reaches far beyond theology, and the church that tends to advertise a hotline to the almighty ”“ after all, God is an Englishman ”“ has a hard time making sense of His teaching in contemporary England. The General Synod of the Church of England met this month in York: once upon a time, it was all gas and gaiters, but now, when the delegates debate the issues of the moment ”“ women bishops and same-sex marriage ”“ they find themselves trapped in a hell of their own making.

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Bay Ridge is geographically close to the hipster Brooklyn neighbourhoods of Park Slope and Williamsburg but could not be more culturally different. It is a world away from the financial district in Manhattan, the epicentre of the September 11 2001 attacks. But Brooklyn is also home to the largest group of people in the US who trace their lineage back to the Arab world, according to census data. And while the heightened sense of a threat from Islamic terrorism that existed post-attacks may have gone, it has given way to a persistent, low-level paranoia that pervades the everyday lives of the million-plus Muslim Arab Americans living here and throughout the country.

Islamophobia in the US is becoming entrenched, according to some Muslim leaders. “We’re living in one of the most hostile civic environments for the Muslim community,” says Faiza Ali, a community organiser at the Arab American Association in Bay Ridge. “And it’s gotten worse since 9/11.”

Hate-crime statistics collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed a sharp spike in violence against Muslims after the 2001 attacks, which levelled out until 2009, when it started ticking up again. There are always problems following events carried out by Muslims, such as the Boston Marathon bombings in March.

Read it all another link, if necessary is .).

Why should pastors bother with social media?

Meredith Gould: Very short answer: Since social media, in some form is here to stay, church leadership, including but not limited to pastors, need to learn why it’s so powerful for ministry. I wrote The Social Media Gospel to help them learn and understand “why to” embrace social media. Why, pray tell, would any person of faith and goodwill choose to ignore these powerful tools for ministry?

You make the point that the rapid change of social media is one thing that church folks find off-putting. How can churches that don’t like change embrace such change-addicted platforms?

Meredith:….We need to distinguish among types of change before we can talk about what church people are finding so off-putting. Are they really upset about rapidly-changing functionality or is their resistance to cultural and institutional change?

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