Faith

Selected items from an article by Bobby Ross, Jr. in The Christian Chronicle that resonated with me:

you might be a member of the church of Christ …

• If you know exactly what song I'm talking about when I ask you to turn to number 728b.
• If you could recite all the books of the Bible before you could even read them.
• If you know the first and third verse of nearly every song.
• If you actually know what a "ready recollection" is and have been thoroughly "guide-guard-and-directed" all your life. (If you're really a member, you know that "guide-guard-and-directed" must be followed by "and-bring-us-back-at-the-next-appointed-time.")
• If you think "progressive" refers to those in the church who want a sound system and PowerPoint.
• If you think the Bible questions on Jeopardy are way too easy.
• If you immediately reach for your wallet when you hear the phrase, "Now, separate and apart from the Lord's Supper … "
• If you know all the words to all the verses of Trust and Obey.
• If, when you're happy and you know it, you clap your hands, stomp your feet and say "Amen!"

From an article titled "News - Some churches replace services with service" by Tamie Ross in The Christian Chronicle:

Across the nation, some congregations are replacing traditional Sunday night or Wednesday night services with projects designed to serve their communities, the Chronicle found. Steve Sandifer, pastoral care minister at the Southwest Central church in Houston, refers to Sundays as class time. Wednesdays, he says, are lab. "It's a time to put into practice what some of us have been learning for 20, 30, even 50 years," Sandifer said of Café Grace, which is "open for your spiritual refreshment" from 6:30 to 9 p.m. each Wednesday. Immigrants come to the church not only to sip fresh cups of coffee, tea and lemonade, but also to study English as a second language - part of the congregation's effort to reach out to its community. "Café Grace started as an experiment, but now is our answer to a mid-week slump," Sandifer said. Looking to stem attendance declines blamed on work-weary commuters, tired young families and those otherwise crunched for time, many congregations are looking for ways to make Sunday and Wednesday nights more relevant. Some say the solution is replacing services with service.

From an article titled "News - A cappella membership drops as churches fail to keep pace with population growth" by Bobby Ross Jr. in The Christian Chronicle:

The number of members and congregations of non-instrumental churches of Christ fell 1 percent in the last three years, according to the latest edition of Churches of Christ in the United States. The 2006 directory, compiled by Carl H. Royster in consultation with Mac Lynn, reports 12,963 a cappella churches of Christ at the end of 2005. Those congregations had 1,265,844 baptized members, according to the directory, published by 21st Century Christian in Nashville, Tenn. Both figures represent declines from 13,155 congregations and 1,276,621 baptized members when the last edition of the directory was published in 2003. "As a general rule, it seems like the smaller congregations were getting smaller and the larger congregations were getting larger," Royster said. "But there were plenty of exceptions to that. "To say I had something definite to attribute (the decline) to, I can't." The number of adherents - which includes children of members - fell to 1,639,495, down from 1,656,717 three years ago. Some of the decline could be attributed to a cappella churches that started using instruments since 2003 and fell off the list, Royster said. Since 1980, the overall U.S. population has risen about 25 percent, but the non-instrumental fellowship has increased only about 2 percent, said Flavil Yeakley, director of the Harding Center for Church Growth in Searcy, Ark. By comparison, instrumental Christian Churches/Churches of Christ grew by 19.6 percent in the 1990s, the second-fastest rate among 15 religious groups in the U.S. that identify themselves as "Christian" and have 1 million or more adherents, Yeakley said. "Only the Mormons grew faster," Yeakley said. The five states with the most a cappella congregations and members in the 2006 edition are Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

From an article of the same title by Mark Moring in Christianity Today:

When Mel Gibson made The Passion of the Christ, no Hollywood studio would touch it, so the director funded it himself. But when the movie earned $371 million, Tinseltown took note, and it was only a matter of time before it decided to jump on the Jesus bandwagon. Now two major Jesus-themed films are in the works: On December 1, New Line Cinema, which hit it big with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, releases The Nativity Story. And next Easter, Sony Pictures, the studio behind The Da Vinci Code, releases The Resurrection. The Nativity Story tells the tale of Joseph and Mary, the journey of the magi, the rule of King Herod, and the birth of Christ. The Resurrection picks up where The Passion left off, telling the story of the 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension.

From a NY Times article of the same title by Neela Banerjee:

The Episcopal Church elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada as its presiding bishop on Sunday, making her the first woman to lead a church in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Many Episcopalians gathered here for the church's triennial general convention cheered the largely unexpected choice of Bishop Jefferts Schori, 52, the lone woman and one of the youngest of the seven candidates for the job. Her election was a milestone for the Episcopal Church, which began ordaining women only in 1976. She takes on her new responsibilities at a particularly fraught moment in the history of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, the world's third-largest church body, with 77 million members. She was elected to succeed Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who will retire in November when his nine-year term ends. At the last general convention, in 2003, the church consented to the election of an openly gay man, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. The decision deeply offended some Episcopalians in the United States and many Anglican primates abroad, who saw it as blatant disregard of Scripture. Since then, some United States congregations have left the Episcopal Church, and primates overseas have threatened schism. Bishop Jefferts Schori supported Bishop Robinson's election in 2003, and the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada permits the blessing of same-sex unions. Moreover, that Bishop Jefferts Schori is a woman could further strain relations with three dioceses in the United States and many Anglican provinces that refuse to ordain women as priests and bishops, critics of the vote said Sunday.