This is the sixth in a series created by a partnership between Baptist News Global and the Campbell University Center for Church and Community. Each month’s columns explore one of the seven types of capital described in the Community Capitals Framework developed by…
It’s not enough to offer scraps from the Table of the Lord
It was about this time nine years ago that one of GracePointe’s members described our congregation to a member of the press as being “gay-friendly.” Amazingly, in response to those extremely weak credentials, the infamous Westboro Baptist Church decided to…
What we missed most about in-person church, what’s coming back and what’s likely to change
Taking Communion, socializing and experiencing live sermons were the top features of in-person worship missed by churchgoers during the coronavirus outbreak, new research shows. The aspects missed the least — partly because they were more easily provided online — included…
A rural church reimagines the Lord’s Supper as a farm stand
During my last semester at Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity, I walked the brick pathway of Hearnz Plaza with one of my professors. Our conversation’s focus was on my future plans to move away from my native North Carolina…
Is the pandemic-era church a church without baptisms, funerals and other major rituals?
“I have to ask myself: am I doing anything I was called to do when I became a pastor?”
An alternative to ‘virtual communion’ for the scattered church
Amid discussions about the practice of “virtual communion” in these extraordinary times, we commend an ancient Christian practice that may be relevant for churches today, especially for those that have decided they cannot celebrate communion virtually.
Scrounging for ‘what elements you have around you’ to share virtual Communion
We joined others at the Lord’s Table(s), a community scattered by a deadly pandemic but gathered, alone together, in homes across the city, sacralizing the common things of life by making holy the elements we had around us.
When a transwoman served me communion
To be presented the Body of Christ by a transwoman created a role reversal I had not anticipated. As a pastor, I am accustomed to being the one serving the elements. Today, I was the one who received. And in that moment, I was changed yet again.
Hoping for cessation of ‘war on Christmas’ rhetoric? Don’t, historians say
Another season of the so-called “war on Christmas,” especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, may be just enough to drive some people over the edge. And all indications are it isn’t going to go away. “There is no…