By Elizabeth Evans Hagan Advent has always been a mystery to me. Maybe it is because I never celebrated it in the churches of my childhood, where we just rushed into singing every verse of “Joy to the World” the…
A house divided still
Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln” pulled in $34 million over the Thanksgiving weekend, running a distant but respectable third behind the new Twilight and James Bond movies. When I saw the film over the weekend, the audience applauded as the credits rolled….
Life balance for clergy remixed
By Mark Tidsworth “The ordained person can then come to realize that his or her first vocation is to be a human being,” observe Donald Hands and Wayne Fehr in Spiritual Wholeness for Clergy. By now, we all know living…
Staff your congregation with 22-44 ministry mobilizers
During uncertain economic times how do congregations provide staff leadership that is essential for forward progress? How do congregations add a staff person? How do congregations replace a staff person? How do congregations lower staff costs in response to what…
A woman of valor
By Wes Spears The latest book to cause a stir in the often echo chamber-like Christian blogosphere is Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood. In it, Evans spends a year trying to live up to the supposed imperatives…
The edgy Christian media startup you need to check out
More and more, Christian media outfits try to create their own social media platforms to get noticed. However, a new edgy social media startup, “Sogo” is taking a different route on social media to get their message out. Sogo describes…
The Palestinian problem
The Palestinian problem
By Leroy Seat Some things never seem to end. This month there has, once again, been serious military action between Palestinians and Israelis. There has been intermittent fighting between Palestine and modern Israel since November 1947. Sixty-five years ago yesterday,…
Reaching your New Year’s goals
My husband and I sat down a few days before Thanksgiving to catch up with each other after putting the kids to bed. We had flown from August to December and sat looking back at the busy season of school…