Leadingchurch.com

NYT

RHE: The church must change or die

Brett: Millenials can’t see beyond themselves and the church should be careful

Jonathan: They’re both right and wrong, what we need is commitment to action he says. A quote after the break.

And another millennial doesn’t feel his perspective adequately voiced by RHE. Patheos. I like this one best so far. “Have you tried praying for the church?”

Also this guy makes the point that RHE might as well say the UMC is fits the bill but they’re hardly busting at the seams.

Bethany Keeley-Jonker on ThinkChristian.

RHE’s follow up posting “Something unexpected happened on the way to the CNN blog” and an interesting comment left by “Sandy”

John Hawthorne’s Millenial Canaries, Millennials tip us off to larger trends.

The Naked Pastor’s take: The church is facing death not just because it is irrelevant but unnecessary.

David French says that millennials are narcissists. 

The Myth of the Perfect Millennial Church

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reasonforchange blog

religion.blogs.cnn

1. Intellectual atheist/agnostic
2. Activist
3. Seeker-agnostic
4. Anti-theist
5. Non-theist
6. Ritual Atheist

religion.blogs.cnn

CNN Religion Blog It’s a pretty good summary of the perspective of her corner of the emergent position. Her critique of evangelicalism is spot on. The piece falls apart when she takes the bait and speaks for “millennials” which is more than a bit risky and presumptuous.

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Reza Aslan authored a new historical questish book of Jesus entitled “Zealot”. He did an interview with John Oliver on the Daily Show.

Pt 1, 2, 3. 

Also his CNN Blog piece on his personal journey

Washington Post book Review

Reza Aslan’s Fox News Interview

From Jesus Creed

Reason 1: Religion isn’t a priority: Only 11% of Christian progressives say that religion is the most important thing in their lives.

Reason 2: Religion is private, not public: 

Reason 3: Discipline in meeting together: Unlike conservative religious people who attend church very frequently, and thus have an opportunity to create strong social bonds and organizations, progressives don’t attend frequently and thus don’t organize.

The Yoga Instructor Said

At the beginning of her class the yoga instructor gave a mini-meditation about the Hindu diety Ganesha. She said that she knew Ganesha was the destroyer of evils and obstacles but she recently learned that Ganesha was also the placer of obstacles to give us challenges to overcome. This caught my attention for at least two reasons.

First, it is not very different from what I’ve been working through in my Joseph series, not about Ganesha but about Yhwh in the book of Genesis. I could easily imagine someone listening to my sermons and hearing this aphorism to say “see, you are both saying the same thing!”

Second, the manner, the tone, the language that the Yoga teacher used very much reminded me of some preachers or worship leaders that off the cuff a bit of spiritual teaching on the informal way to the grouping of praise songs.

Lions and Tigers and Pluralists Oh My Continue reading →