Social and racial justice activists should envision rubber bands when frustrated, fearful or angry about the “perilous times” currently facing the movements for systemic change in the U.S., Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza said. “What happens with rubber bands?…
Survey says: More than half of U.S. congregations started new ministries during COVID
Here’s one more silver lining to the dark cloud of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic: “The level of new and intensified social outreach and community ministry undertaken by the nation’s churches is monumental.” So reports the Hartford Institute for Religion Research…
Baptism is a call to social action, not a genteel ceremony, Braxton says
Baptism services should not be polite affairs or genteel ceremonies. Instead, they should be provocative political statements that agitate more than comfort and call believers to action, according to Brad Braxton. “Baptism services should not be polite. On the contrary,…
How do we effectively present Jesus to the world? Two contrasting approaches.
For one Baptist mission organization in the U.S., evangelism is the goal and method considered superior to all other mission strategies. For another, the primary way of presenting Jesus to the world is through a benevolent response to human need.
Signature ministries: ‘The art of human contacts’
The Catholic Worker Movement, one of the most important Christian social ministries of the modern era, began in 1933 in New York during the Great Depression. The founders, Catholic Peter Maurin and journalist/Catholic convert Dorothy Day initiated the movement, Day…