“…just a few blocks away a humble gathering of interfaith clergy, lay leaders, faith-based social justice advocates, and members of the Occupy Movement are simultaneously finalizing their plans for an alternative interfaith People’s Prayer Breakfast.”
This is one of the best parish welcome videos we’ve seen. And we’ve seen a few
The best you can do is trace membership in the denominations that have reliable figures. The long-term pattern was mainline decline and conservative growth, with the overall total remaining about the same–until the last 5 years when the overall total began to decline. Mainline decline got worse and several large conservative bodies began to decline.
…women tend to have a 27% lower salary than men, 90% of the lead women pastors are the first woman in such a position in their congregation, 69% of the women are married compared with 99% of the male pastors, 25% of the lead women pastors report some form of physical threat. ~UMC study
This pernicious proposal of a Covenant (an unhappy choice of name if you know anything about our Church’s history) ignores the Anglican Communion’s past, and seeks to gridlock the Anglican present at the cost of a truly Anglican future. ~MacCulloch
… this means that if and when the present ruling stands and we retain the disputed properties, no community of faith, no ministry program will be summarily thrown out of its current place. We will be as open as possible to creative agreements, generous provision, and true mutuality, while protecting the needs of our own ministries and the integrity of our witness.
…Campbell and her friends have decided the most powerful thing they can do is drive the city’s streets and pray, as the community does its business, unaware, around them. “We got a problem, but we don’t know how to solve it,” Campbell insisted. “Well, we do,” she said, meaning herself, Minor and their friends. “We’re taking it to the Spirit.”
“While these numbers may not capture the totality of what is happening in the Church, we do not have a measure that is moving in a positive direction.”
I am concerned that the categories within the budget perpetuate the church’s continued reliance on an executive, staff-driven church. This model isn’t working for us, and it runs counter to the flexible networks that are being developed and embraced at other levels of the church and in the world. ~Bonnie Anderson