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The “Nones” Are Alright

He is a lifelong atheist. Raised by parents who eschewed organized religion, he identifies with his Jewish roots but does not believe in God. Tonight we’re talking about children. He and his wife are beginning that conversation, and he wonders how religion will factor in.


Atheist_Quotes Atheist_Quotes

Investments

When I closed the front door, I was really struck. Moved. This couple had decided that their marriage was a treasure. That it was worth laying out the big bucks to give this thing an honest try.


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Telling Bible Stories in Children’s Chapel

Bible stories were told many times before they were written down. The fact that they have been written down does not mean that they are now in a definitive form. In fact when I tell them, they continue to change. They change because of the listeners.


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Preach Faith and Finances

Jesus talks about money a lot. If we are going to be faithful to preaching on the gospels, we preachers need to talk about money more than we usually do, not less than we usually do.


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Christian Formation and the Great Commandment

When we say, “Christian Formation.” though, we’re talking about forming the whole Christian. Theology is an essential part of that — there can be no saying, “Well, if we just teach them to love Jesus (heart), that’s all they need.” Christ says otherwise. If we say, “They’re learning the theology of service (strength) by doing their volunteer hours,” again we’ve got an incomplete picture.


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The “Nones” Are Alright

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 19th, 2013
Atheist_Quotes

by Kaya Oakes

My oldest friend, a man I have known for nearly 30 years, is sitting across the table from me in a cramped Korean restaurant in Berkeley, California. We are both writers who come to the topic of faith from vastly different experiences. I am a returned Catholic. Raised in the religion and the product of Catholic schools, I left the church with a lot of bitterness and resentment only to return in my 30s. It has been a rocky but life-altering transition. He is a lifelong atheist. Raised by parents who eschewed organized religion, he identifies with his Jewish roots but does not believe in God. Tonight we’re talking about children. He and his wife are beginning that conversation, and he wonders how religion will factor in.

“You know,” my friend says. “I want to bring my kids up understanding there’s no such thing as God.”


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Investments

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 18th, 2013
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by Amy Sander Montanez

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust can corrupt.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

The pain in his eyes caught my attention.  Although he was only twenty-five, he looked tired and sad, and she looked slightly desperate, her curly dark hair askew in a careless bun.   This young couple came to see me for the first time last week.  Leaving their small, rural town, they drove an hour to get to my office and took time off from their blue-collar jobs to come to the appointment.

The session was difficult.  From their teenage years as a couple, they had been in trouble. Children given up for adoption.  Depression.  Flirtations.  And well before they had even met each other, childhood wounds left scars and scabs that competed for attention and first aid.  I knew, if they were going to make it, they were going to have to commit to the process of therapy and work really hard.  Even the first session, which I tried to make gentle and supportive, pushed them way out of their comfort zone.


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Telling Bible Stories in Children’s Chapel

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 17th, 2013
childrenschapel

by Bill Gordh

This article is an adapted from “Building a Children’s Chapel: One Story at a Time” (2007: Church Publishing).

Stories are a centerpiece of a children’s chapel program. There are many excellent stories that can be used for a chapel gathering. Picture books, folktales, personal stories, and Bible stories can all contribute to a vibrate program. Picture books for young children offer a story they can revisit on their own or with others. Folktales demonstrate to children that we learn from many cultures. Personal stories remind children that everyone has experiences in common and that we learn from events in others’ lives. Bible stories offer a wealth and depth of story that is central to our culture.

Why tell stories?

Bible stories were told many times before they were written down. The fact that they have been written down does not mean that they are now in a definitive form. In fact when I tell them, they continue to change. They change because of the listeners.


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Preach Faith and Finances

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 16th, 2013
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by Chick Lane

In my experience many pastors are reluctant to preach about money. Most of us would rather not have someone say of us, “All you ever talk about is money.” A sure way to avoid this is to never talk about money.

Jesus talks about money a lot. If we are going to be faithful to preaching on the gospels, we preachers need to talk about money more than we usually do, not less than we usually do.

Perhaps the problem isn’t that we talk about money too often, but rather than when we do talk about money, we are always asking for some. Can we follow Jesus’ lead and talk about money as a faith and discipleship issue, rather than an “income for the church” issue?


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Christian Formation and the Great Commandment

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 14th, 2013
commandment

by Jennifer Fitz

My first year teaching religious education, our textbook emphasized the “Great Commandment”.  It’s a term that refers to this passage of the Gospel:

One of the scribes heard their dispute, and, finding that he answered to the purpose, came up and asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered him, The first commandment of all is, Listen, Israel; there is no God but the Lord thy God;  and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the love of thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole mind, and thy whole strength. This is the first commandment, and the second, its like, is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:28-31

It’s been a formative verse for me.  As a fan off all things theology-for-laypeople, what struck me most was, “Love the Lord your God with . . .  all your mind.” Needless to say, I wrote a long-winded “Hurrah!” when I saw this post from William O’Leary at Catechesis in the Third Millenium, on the importance of studying theology.

When we say, “Christian Formation.” though, we’re talking about forming the whole Christian.  Theology is an essential part of that — there can be no saying, “Well, if we just teach them to love Jesus (heart), that’s all they need.”  Christ says otherwise.  If we say, “They’re learning the theology of service (strength) by doing their volunteer hours,” again we’ve got an incomplete picture.


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Boxes

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 13th, 2013
Boxes

by Roger Hutchison

Sometimes fear grips hold and does not let go.

I am weary.  I want it to end.  I want us to live in a place where children can go to sleep at night without the sound of gunfire; walls riddled with bullet holes and judgment.  I yearn for these children a restful night curled securely under a blanket of hope, clutching tightly the hand of a velveteen friend and dreaming about the things children dream about.  Instead, I see eyes peeking out from behind a curtain of terror while death swirls about their heads and broken bodies litter their streets.

The unease I feel is quickly placed into a box and I tightly seal the lid.  I stack it next to the dust-covered box labeled trust.


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Generational Differences in Leadership

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 12th, 2013
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by Sharon Ely Pearson

Generational differences can affect everything, including calling for ministry, building teams, dealing with change, motivating, managing, and maintaining and increasing productivity. Think of how generational differences, relative to how people communicate, might affect misunderstandings, high volunteer turnover, and difficulty in attracting and gaining volunteer commitment. How this impacts working in a church setting on the vestry and other various committees as well is something to keep in mind when calling individuals into new ministry as well as keeping those involved committed.

Who and what makes up the four generations?


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It Takes a Whole Faith Community

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 11th, 2013
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by Colleen Scheid

All three of our sons will be in high school this fall, so it is a natural time to review their childhoods.  Our twins are finishing up eighth grade, saying goodbye to friends who will go to different high schools; and our older son, soon to be a junior, is a few days away from driving.  It goes without saying that it seems like yesterday when we were discussing where to send them to kindergarten.

I am very grateful to be able to say that our boys have had pretty happy, stable childhoods.  They have had a loving extended family, good schooling and great sports coaches and music teachers.  But what I am grateful for above all is that they have grown up in a faith community that has loved them and provided them with delightful experiences through every phase of childhood.


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Becoming Sméagol

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 10th, 2013
Gollum-smeagol

by Charles LaFond

Most of us, with some saintly exceptions, find pledging money to God, through the church, hard to do. I want to hold it back, let others pull my weight, rest on dead people’s gifts to the endowment.

That is my inner-Gollum talking. Do you remember J. R. R. Tolkien’s gnarled character in The Lord of the Rings? He had a split personality; “Sméagol” still vaguely remembered things like friendship and love, while “Gollum” was a slave to the Ring who knew only treachery, scarcity and violence.

One summer day I took a friend of mine on a tour of my farm. She ooo’d and ahhh’d over a summer squash, and though my impulse was to pick it for her to take home, something inside me sputtered, crackled, chilled, hissed and withdrew. “I had a poor crop,” a voice in my head said. “It is my precious,” Gollum might have said. That squash was the only one I could see. So I smiled, rather too sweetly, and we moved on.


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No Longer a Majority

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 9th, 2013
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by Timothy Fowler

Data revealing that for the first time in its history the United States does not have a Protestant majority, presents evangelicals with opportunities and challenges, say two experts.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life unveiled data in October which showed that only 48 percent of Americans identified themselves as Protestants.

This is a change from 2007, when Pew said that Protestants still made up a majority (53 percent) of the population.

The trend is driven by younger people who are increasingly identifying themselves as unaffiliated, says David Kinnaman, the president of Barna Group, a research group focused on faith and culture.

“It’s absolutely driven by younger people,” he said in an interview with the Spring 2013 edition of Biola Magazine, a publication of the evangelical California-based school, Biola University. “Some of the data suggests that millennials are twice as likely to be religiously unaffiliated.”


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Bivocational Ministry

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 8th, 2013
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by Jason Byassee

Bivocational ministry was once seen as a sort of niche ministry, confined to rural and underfunded parishes, out in the wilderness. But surprise! — it now looks as if some form of bivocational ministry is the future of the church of Jesus Christ as a whole. We may all be headed to bivocational ministry, like it or not.

So what can the wisdom of the ages of bivocational ministry teach us about faithful missional forms of church life in the future? In the ancient church, so many monks and nuns fled to the desert that, it was said, “the desert became a city.” What if the desert of bivocational ministry is becoming the city of God?


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The New World of Curriculum: Part 2

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 7th, 2013
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by Sharon Ely Pearson

As teachers and educational leaders in this new paradigm (as described in Part 1), we need the lens to help discern what resources and curricular materials are compatible with our church’s mission. Theology – is it grounded in the Bible and our tradition? Are we helping learners become critical thinkers? How do we help them find content and discern reliable sources; help learners in our churches to engage with the tradition consciously, not unconsciously. How do we believe what we believe?

Seek partnerships, such as interfaith learning and dialogue. John M. Hull states, “Christian education must no longer be self-assertive. The function of Christian education in not to promote Christian distinctiveness as such, but to fulfill the historical mission of Christian faith in relation to the destiny of the human species. We shall do this best not through wasting our energies on a pointless competition but through seeking to cooperate with others, and other religions, forming common projects in partnership which will focus upon the actual forces of death in the world today.” (Education and Ecumenical Formation: World Council of Churches, Volume 12, April 2003, pp. 7-9). We also need to embrace ambiguity – living with the unknown when there is an answer for everyone.


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The New World of Curriculum: Part 1

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 6th, 2013
past-present-future

by Sharon Ely Pearson

As we know, the root word for curriculum is currere – “a course to be run.” Curriculum is one of many resources to help us “run the course” of being a lifelong disciple of Christ. At one time the teacher was “the sage on the stage,” using curriculum to pour information into the “empty vessels” of a child’s brain.

In today’s world, we understand how teachers and students learn together. We are partners as we teach and mentor others on the journey of faith.  Curriculum has been and will continue to be a fluid dynamic that influence what is being taught as well how it will be taught. By fluid I mean that it needs to adapt as learners, educational techniques and lest we forget, technology change.

We have seen the increased influence of the computer, virtual classroom and the internet’s impact on teaching in our schools and now our churches. In recent years we have focused on multiple intelligences and hands-on activities that engage the whole learner and allow individuals to work to their strength in learning.


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We Will, With God’s Help

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 5th, 2013
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by Carrie Stepp Graves

“Who will be the next Freddy Vang?”

This is a question asked every year by the St. Martin’s-In-The-Fields Education for Ministry group since May 2007, when a man named Freddy Vang graduated from the program. Those of us who were in the group with him (and continue as students or mentors) think to ourselves, “Who will inspire us, sum things up for us, nail the truth like an arrow hitting a bullseye? How will we really learn anything about God, the church, or theology this year with no Freddy Vang in our group?” Freddy would continue to be an active member of our parish, but we wouldn’t have that time of deep discussion and community building with him that EfM provided each week.

Freddy was a deep thinker, loved theology and the Book of Common Prayer, and sought a deeper relationship with God each day of his life. I had the unbeatable privilege of being a student in EfM with Freddy for four years. We started together and graduated together. During that time, I got to know one of the most inspiring, brave, loving, devoted, courageous, loyal, and dependable people I could ever hope to know.


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The Need for Willow Tree Faith

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 4th, 2013

by George W. Rizor

The disciples were frequently ‘duh’-sciples, not getting it, not quite grasping exactly what it was that Jesus was saying, doing, meaning or trying to convey.  They frequently got it wrong and even more frequently didn’t get it quite right.

Early on in Jesus’ ministry, they misunderstood what Jesus had to say about marriage, about witness, about ownership, about priorities, about… well, just about everything.

Yet, after having been with Jesus for a significant amount of time, Jesus asks them a crucial question:  Who do you think I am?  And Peter blurts out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Despite having gotten much wrong along the journey and having frequently misunderstood Jesus’ intentions, and even having been chided or corrected by Jesus on occasion, Peter got it right.

AND, he exhibited a characteristic of faith that we would do well to emulate.


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The Mask of Desire for God

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 3rd, 2013
masquerade-mask

by James W. Farwell

A story is told of a young man, an unsavory type, who falls in love with a saintly young woman. Knowing that she will not so much as look in his direction, he slips into the vault of the town cathedral, dons one of the masks of the saints used in the annual town festival, takes on the demeanor and behavior of a saint, and begins to woo her. Surely enough, over time, she begins to fall in love with him. As the relationship flowers and deepens, the young man’s scoundrel friends finally become envious of his success with the saintly young woman and, one day, out of sheer spite, challenge him in the center of the town square, in the presence of his beloved, to take off the mask and reveal his true identity. Dejected, knowing that all is lost, he slowly removes the mask . . . only to reveal that his face has become the face of the saint.

The origin of this story is uncertain, the present author no longer recalling where he first heard it. Its inspiration, however, is clearly medieval dramas, eighteenth-century stories of the masque, and even St. Augustine’s theological account of desire in our search for God. Whatever its source, it is an apt metaphor for the function of liturgy in the best possible case.


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Moving Online for Formation

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 2nd, 2013
inuksuk

by Jeff Brumley

Ministers of spiritual formation are turning to the Internet to counter the interference hectic schedules, frequent traveling, social media and other demands of modern life can have on healthy discipleship.

Jayne Davis, minister of spiritual formation at First Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C., said pastors and congregations must be creative online, where people increasingly are finding much of their spiritual sustenance from questionable sources.

“There seems to be a growing hunger for Christian education and discipleship in an age where people are on the go and where the old models are just not working for us,” Davis said.

It’s why Davis is spearheading a dedicated spiritual formation Internet site, Hopeful Imagination, a ministry designed to offer services and encouragement to struggling congregations. Davis’ section was added in April to offer ideas and resources for spiritual formation ministers and others interested in the discipline.


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Wiggle Tamers & On-Boards

Posted by Sharon Pearson on June 1st, 2013
team-building-activities

by Sharon Ely Pearson

Whether gathering with children, youth, or adults sometimes you just need an ice-breaker to get folks warmed up, moving, or engaged with each other. It can be the first five minutes of a class, an introductory exercise when a group is meeting for the first time, or an activity to break up a long session of sitting and deep thinking.

Try any one of these next time you’re looking for a quick filler (or starter) with your group!

Spectrum Exercise. Get everyone up and moving. Have one side of the room serve as one answer on the spectrum, the other end of the room, the opposite. Or individuals could stand or sit, depending on their response. These are easy to make up on your own, depending on the questions. For example: How’s it going today? How was your week?

  • Barefoot in the Park / Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Sunny / Stormy
  • I felt like a princess/prince / I felt like a gym shoe

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Retire or Refire? Aging is Changing

Posted by Sharon Pearson on May 31st, 2013
elderly-woman

by Sharon Ely Pearson

May is “Older Americans Month,” a tradition that shows commitment to honoring the value that elders contribute to our communities. My dad is 89 years old and lives in an assisted living facility. When he first moved in one of his first comments were, “There are lots of old people here!” Yes, he was right. But he did not perceive himself as being “old” (and he is probably one of the older residents there as well as a minority, being a man). Even today he will say, “There are lots of people here with walkers.” And he uses a cane!

For him, time seems to be fleeting and he desires life to slow down. But he reads, is still engaged in following the UCONN Huskies and St. Louis Cardinals, and follows the stock market. I often dismiss his comments as, “That’s not how it is today.” But is that true? What does it mean to age today?


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The Call to Ministry in Early Pentecost

Posted by Sharon Pearson on May 30th, 2013
occupations

from Living the Good News

For many, the period after Easter, Ascension and Pentecost is a time to slow down, to anticipate the warmer days of summer and to savor the thoughts of vacation and peace. The readings, however, give a call to gear up for ministry, to stir up the Spirit given to each person in Baptism and to share the gospel with the world. Summer is a time for the harvester of the kingdom to be preparing for the harvest rather than to be dozing under an old oak tree!

The gospel speaks of a God who reaches out to all people into the widespread arms of love. Into these arms run even the officers of the occupation army of Rome! The centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant (Proper 4) is living proof of the exclamation of Peter about another centurion. God shows no partiality. It is a Gentile prayer that brings about the healing. So often the gospel is preached through the actions and words of those who are not of the household of faith. 


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