Links for the Week
Some favorite links from around the web this week:
ARIS study released this week
The Coming Evangelical Collapse: A Statistical Review by Michael Bell
An evaluation of iMonk’s claims on the coming evangelical collapse through the eyes of statistical analysis
Losing My Religion? Not So Fast… Loren Green of Foxnews.com thinks that ARIS might not be so negative after all. She looks at the stats before 2001 and after to demonstrate the potential impact of 9/11.
Suburbia
Suburbia R.I.P. Does the downturn spell the beginning of the end for suburbia? Some experts say yesterday’s cul-de-sac is tomorrow’s ghost town.
Communication
How to Squeeze Writing Inspiration from Every Experience Do you have days where you sit in front of an empty page – and find nothing, absolutely nothing you could write about? I used to. But now I’ve learned to squeeze inspiration from every experience.
Tell Stories We live in a world with information overload. Data, facts, statistics and definitive answers to specific questions are immediately available from search engines on the internet. But people want more than facts. They want understanding. They want meaning. They want context. They want stories.
Ministry
In Search of Dolphin Leather The acquisition of the leather is irrelevant. It was the quest that mattered. Having a community-based quest means that there’s less room for whining, for infighting and for dissolution. Having a mission not only points everyone in the same direction, it also creates motion. And motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all.
Instilling Missional Habits in a Congregation – As You Walk Among Your Community How do we lead a church community to engage mission as a way of life? How do we steer a congregation out of evangelism programs into everyday missional living? How do we train a congregation out of Christendom habits and instill post Christendom virtues (character for living faithfully in post Christendom)? I think leaders walk along and among their communities.
Who Should the Church Pay to Serve? Neil Cole begins to examine this issue and share who is supported “full time” in the NT.
Who Should The Church Pay: Double honor to the preachers and teachers Paul does mention giving “double honor” to elders, and especially those that work hard at preaching and teaching. I am in favor of giving honor and double honor to godly elders who shepherd, mentor and teach the churches. But I have a hard time interpreting “double honor” as a full-time salary and benefits. We have come up with the word “honorarium” based on this expression in the New Testament. When we present a speaker with a financial token of appreciation I actually think we are closer to Paul’s intent in this passage.
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Tags: Communication, Links, Ministry
