“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” These words from Joel, heard on Ash Wednesday, are a liturgical sentence sung throughout Lent. Lent is a season of repentance, of turning around. It originated as the time in which the candidates for baptism […]
Archives for February 2015
Old Rites and New Catholics
Breaking Open the Scriptures It’s a cloudy Sunday morning in early February as I pull up outside of the parish center of St Vincent De Paul Roman Catholic Church. In the basement, a group of about a dozen young adults are gathered in a circle. I ease my way into the room quietly and sit […]
Repentance
What do we mean when we say we should repent? The concept of repentance appears throughout the Bible, yet when its theme returns the accents and the texture often change. The topic of repentance in the Bible requires careful translation and an openness to ancient ideas of repentance. We cannot assume that if we […]
To Turn Again
The new years walk, restoring Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring With a new verse the ancient rhyme T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I took a class entirely on the poetry of T.S. Eliot. I don’t remember now what made me so eager, […]
Turning Around a Synod
I heard this story from the bishop of another synod: A woman was talking with him and said that she thought her smallish congregation was “just the right size” the way it was and shouldn’t try to get bigger. He asked, “Do you think there might be one person left in the neighborhood of your […]
On the Way: Treading Out the Grain
Some day I hope to preach on Deuteronomy 25:4: “You shall not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain.” Unjustly neglected by our lectionary, this verse is both poetic and, in its way, evangelical. Is there an earlier legal admonition to treat beasts of burden humanely while they are in the midst […]
As I See It: Inculcating the Habit of Worship
On Trinity Sunday (June 3, 2012) the so-called Athanasian Creed will be recited in many churches. It is noteworthy that this Creed, which seems to offend many sensibilities today, does not begin with a statement of belief but an affirmation of worship. It says that salvation is a matter of clinging to the catholic faith […]
Opening God’s Gift of Time
One Saturday night more than twenty years ago, some friends and I were having dinner at a nice restaurant. It was a beautiful spring evening, but we were having trouble relaxing because we were thinking about tomorrow. After putting in a quick appearance at church, each of us planned to spend most of the day […]
Shabbat Worship in Contemporary Judaism
For non-Orthodox Jews, communal prayer in the synagogue on Shabbat is seen as an optional activity that a relatively small percentage of liberal Jews take advantage of on a regular basis. A recent study found that in Reform congregations 17 people out of 100 families who are members attend on any given Shabbat and that […]
What Sociologists Have Learned About Church Attendance
Social scientists have been tracking self-reported religious service attendance for over seventy years. At present, over 40% of adult Americans claim to attend church (or other religious services) nearly every week. That figure is 25% lower than at its peak in the 1950s, but it has remained remarkably stable for the past four decades, declining […]
Let’s Talk Survey on Worship Attendance
The pastor stands up at the annual meeting to give the demographic and statistics report on the state of the congregation. “I’ve got bad news and good news”, she tells the members as she begins her report “our membership is down by 12% this past year. But the good news is that the Methodists across […]
A Tribute to Ruth E. VanDemark, 1944-2012
Ruth VanDemark, our colleague on this journal and in our synod, died on June 9th of complications from breast cancer. She was deeply devoted to the ministry and mission of Let’s Talk, to foster thoughtful theological conversation in our synod and beyond. She co-edited our 2010 issue on “Environmental Theology” and was instrumental, though uncredited, […]
On the Way: Children of the Heavenly Father
The phantom-limb sensation of parenting two children lasted for about a month. For over two years, my wife, son and I had been the family for a foster child placed in our care well before her first birthday. Caring for her was a great blessing and an adventure, though it was, not coincidentally, a daily […]
As I See It: Training Youth To Visit Other Churches
It intrigues and concerns me that many of our young people don’t seek out worshiping communities when they leave home, for example, to go away to college or university. Yet they readily return to worship at their home church when they are home visiting their parents. So they cut loose from family routines when they […]
Sea Monsters, Butterflyfish, and the Hiddenness of God
Annie Dillard once wrote: “Nothing could more surely convince me of God’s unending mercy than the continued existence on earth of the church.”1 True enough, but I would also add a corollary: nothing could more surely convince me of God’s hiddenness than the continued existence of theology. The history of theological reflection might plausibly be […]
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