The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, spoke Thursday night before a crowd of about 250 people at Oregon State University, drawing on her experiences in both the scientific and the religious worlds and concluded that both are essential.

“Both science and religion have important things to say to all human endeavor … and at this stage in human history, we may not develop an adequate response to the dilemmas of existence without attention to both ways of knowing,” Schori said.

Creating a world of peace and justice and one in which human beings can survive physically depends on the ability of science and religion to talk to each other and build alliances that can respond to suffering the world, according to Schori.

“Both science and religion lead people to see the world with enormous awe. The response can either be a burning desire to understand the workings of the physical world, or an equally burning desire to connect with whatever has brought this world in existence.

“Both kinds of passion can help us to care for this world and all its inhabitants and both are going to be needed if we are going to relieve the suffering of many and bring increasing hope to our own species and all others,” Schori said.

Read it all.

Pooling the resources of former missionary dioceses, neighboring congregations, and the Diocese of Nevada, a new congregation called St. Catherine of Siena has formed under the leadership of the Rev. Laurie Chapelle and several lay people in suburban South Reno.

Described as “evangelism on a shoestring,” the effort reveals a corporate approach to mission with laity “on loan” from nearby parishes to help with leadership and to build up the congregation, the mission has been in existence since Lent. The area is a fast growing area with 35,000 residents, 43% of whom have no church background whatsoever and of those 65% say they would prefer, were they to be in a church, a traditional-type experience.

A story in Episcopal Life On-Line by Pat McCaughan tells of their work.

[A] tri-parish coalition contributed financially and provided secretarial support as well as St. Paul's treasurer Dick Stufflebeam, who helped write a grant proposal to the Domestic Missionary Partnership (DMP).

The DMP is a group of former mission dioceses which receives yearly funding from the churchwide budget in support of mission projects. The dioceses -- Alaska, Eastern Oregon, Eau Claire, El Camino Real, Idaho, Mississippi, Navajoland, Nevada, North Dakota, Utah, and Western Kansas -- pool the funds and redistribute them as grants to support missions like St. Catherine's.

Chappelle found worship space for a nominal monthly rental fee at the chapel at Bishop Montague Roman Catholic High School and February 4 was the target start-up date.
"We did what they call in retail, a soft opening, using word of mouth, newsletter articles and had 102 people at the first service," she said. "We realized that a lot of people were there who probably wouldn't be with us every week, but it was a lovely show of support for us."

"It was an interesting opportunity to help grow Christianity, so I volunteered to go," recalls Barsalou, 48, a St. Paul's vestry member. "I'm one of those people who likes to fill gaps. My son Denis said he wanted to lead, instead of to follow. For me, it was getting a chance to help people realize, you can do this."

St. Catherine's offers an 11 a.m. traditional Rite II Eucharist on Sundays without prayer books because they couldn't afford them and "there's no place for us to store them," Chappelle said. Everything necessary for worship is contained in the bulletin. "There's no Episcopal gymnastics, no book juggling and we're using recycled paper and are recycling the bulletin in an attempt to at least reduce the impact," Chappelle said. The service is preceded by 10 a.m. adult and youth Christian education.

Attendance averages 50 to 60 weekly, enough that Chappelle is considering creating a stewardship team. Eventually, St. Catherine's will transition from worshipping community to parish status and create its own vestry.

Episcopal Life OnLine: New Reno Church Taps the Unchurched.
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The Episcopal News Service has posted a PDF version of a display ad that was placed on the op-ed page of May 12 editions of The New York Times. The ad marked the beginnings, 400 years ago, of the Jamestown Colony and connects that mission with the Episcopal Church's mission in North America today.

Somewhere near you, there’s a blue-and-white sign bearing the familiar slogan: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You. It represents some 7,400 congregations that trace their beginnings in North America to small but hopeful group of English Christians who arrived May 14, 1607 at a place they called Jamestown — the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

See it here.

The Church Times reports on efforts to reach young people:

Holding short services, going to night clubs, and finding language that is appropriate for the 21st century are three of the many suggestions made in three new books about working with young people. The books have been published by the Church of England this week.

They challenge Christians to take part in risky worship that could allow “tawdry youth culture” into the church, if young people are to feel at home in the pews.

In the first book, Young People and Mission: A practical guide, Diana Greenfield of the Church Army, one of 12 contributors, writes about nightclub chaplaincy, a field she describes as “untapped”. She criticises churches for their lack of work in what she says some Christians call “dens of iniquity”.

Other sections include a challenge to speak in contemporary rather than special Christian language, even at the risk of upsetting older members of the congregation, and to meet young people outside church premises, on their own territory.

Read it here.

Related, on our side of the Atlantic:

On the Feast of the Ascension, the historic Church of the Ascension [Atlantic City] — now also known as Ascension on da Strip — installed the Rev. Timothy “Poppa T” Holder as its rector in a ceremony that was a combination of High Church, African-American gospel and hip-hop.

Holder, a founding priest of HipHopEMass, most recently served in the South Bronx. The goal of the group is to use the language and music of the streets to bring young people to the church.

“It is a venture in faith,” Bishop George Councell of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey said in introducing the new rector to the congregation.

Read, also, Father Jake's wonderful account, High Church Hip Hop.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, Church Times is also reporting on the strife at Wycliffe Hall seminary surrounding attitudes towards women:

The complaints centre on the management style of the Principal, the Revd Dr Richard Turnbull, and his appointment of the Revd Simon Vibert as Vice-Principal. Mr Vibert had made public his belief that women should not teach men.

He co-wrote, with the Revd Dr Mark Burkill and the Revd Dr David Peterson, a Latimer Trust paper that argued that a woman on her own should not teach men about faith or lead a congregation (Ministry Work Group Statement concerning the ministry of women in the Church today).

Since Dr Turnbull was appointed in 2005, six full-time or part-time academic staff have resigned posts.
...
The governing Council of the theological college, a permanent private hall of the University, is chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd James Jones. This week it said that it had embarked on a review of the college’s governance.

Item 1:

Every Sunday morning, a pickup truck quietly pulls up to the front door of a middle school just east of Leesburg [Virginia, Diocese of Virginia].

Soon, more early risers arrive and begin unpacking the trailer attached to the truck. Large wooden contraptions - giant boxes with wheels - roll down the trailer's ramp and into the school.

All is abuzz as people unpack the boxes, transforming Belmont Ridge Middle School's auditorium into St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church.

I am an active member of this church - a fact that a few years ago would have surprised me. Though I grew up going to an Episcopal church, religion always seemed impenetrable and forbidding.
...
A friend mentioned Jeunee Cunningham, pastor of St. Gabriel's, and had only positive things to say about her. So I e-mailed her.

Jeunee replied immediately. Probably sensing my trepidation, she set me at ease by telling me that she and her husband didn't belong to a church when they got married. They attended a service at an Episcopal church they liked and said, "Hey - let's get married there!"

Ostlund has lived in Loxahatchee for eight months.

The Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida recognized the growth of the western communities and anticipated the establishment of the Callery-Judge Grove community, so it committed her to the area to establish a ministry.

She is living in a home bought by the church that also serves as her office and meeting space for the congregation.

A group she calls The 15:58 is helping her to get a church established in the community. "They are named after Corinthians 15:58," Ostlund said. "Basically, the Scripture says that if you keep working, your work will pay off."

The friendliest, trendiest, most radically inclusive worship experience in all of Tulsa, Oklahoma, takes place at Trinity Episcopal Church. No, not at that service! The other one...the one that meets at 1 p.m. Sundays and on Wednesdays at 7. The New Dimensions Worship center led by Bishop Carlton Pearson, worships at Trinity with a blend of Gospel Music and Pentecostal worship that also preaches what their pastor calls a Gospel of Radical Inclusion.

Pearson was a rising star in the Church of God in Christ, the largest African-American denomination in the US and also on the evangelical-pentecostal circuit. Known for his music, dancing and flamboyant preaching style. But that was until he began to preach a “Gospel of Radical Inclusion.”

Soon he found himself having to defend his views before the congress of the Joint College of African American Pentecostal Bishops, a group made of leaders of independent Pentecostal churches and congregations affiliated with the American Baptist Churches U.S.A. and the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship.

He told the panel, "In the biblical and classical Christian theology, salvation is sometimes pictured in a restrictive sense, belonging only to those who respond in faith. A more careful study of Scriptures will reveal that salvation is also. … pictured in a universally inclusive way, in which God is redeemer of the whole world or creation, including all human beings."

At the time, he was pastor of a 5,000 member mega-church called Higher Dimensions Family Center. But as he began to preach and teach his Gospel of Radical Inclusion, he found that his speaking engagements on the evangelical circuit went away, he was condemned in the evangelical press and, he said, “everything I spend my whole life working for went up in smoke.”

Now his smaller group now rents space from Trinity Episcopal Church, Tulsa, but, as Toby Jenkins of Oklahomans for Equality said to CNN, "he is courageously suffering and lost so much... for people like us... Now that's our hero."

He used to preach that homosexuality is an unqualified sin, prayed for the healing of gay and lesbian people, until his best friend—whom Pearson describes as a believer and deeply spiritual person—came out to him. In an interview on CNN, Pearson said he also looked around Tulsa and saw that with the levels of divorce, substance abuse and teen pregnancy in the area, and concluded that “all this hyper conservative fundamentalist religion is probably not working.” In the video clip he asks that if God does not count sins against us, then why do Christians and religious leaders?

He says “I thnk we have idolized the Bible, turned it what I call Bible bullets to shoot down anything we don't like, anything we are comfortable with. I would like for that to be corrected in the Christian consciousness.”

Here is a longer, more in-depth profile on NPR's This American Life.

Beliefnet ranks Pearson as one of the ten most influential African-American religious leaders. He is now associated with the United Church of Christ.

Mainline churches seeking to ape the the techniques of megachurches should be aware that megachurches are just beginning to ape the mainline's commitment to social justice. Jason Byassee noted this intriguing dynamic when he accompanied a group of Methodist ministers from North Carolina on a visit to Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago.

He writes:

Willow has as much enthusiasm for “social justice” as I’ve ever heard at a Methodist annual conference, and it’s only started at social justice, while United Methodists have been pursuing it since, well, since there was Methodism, and have long been good at it. So as United Methodist ministers are shuttled off to go copy church-growth methods, church-growth guru Hybels is charging into “our” territory: reading the Bible holistically, touting diversity.

The point: these are things United Methodists are good at.

Why don't mainline Protestant denominations do a better job at evangelism? The Christian Century (its own drowsiness a reflection of mainline decline) touches on this question in reviews of two new books on the topic.

Lillian Daniel, senior minister of First Congregational Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, makes this excellent point in her review of Unbinding the Gospel by Martha Grace Reese:

It has long struck me that the same mainline church members who pass resolutions on gay marriage and propose solutions to conflict in the Middle East suddenly shrink in silence on the subject of their faith, and they do this—here's the irony—so they won't offend anyone. For too long, our noble impulses toward tolerance and inclusivity have turned us into spiritual illiterates who, being out of practice, have forgotten how to speak the words of our faith.

William Willimon, a Methodist bishop, praises Bryan Stone, author of Evangelism After Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness for "an incisive critique of what passes for evangelism in most of our churches."

... Stone notes notes that we've tried to evangelize via two main paths, which he calls "Christendom lite": establishment of the intellectual respectability of the gospel in essentially secular terms that are allegedly broader or more plausible than traditional theological phrasings (as in James R. Adams's So You Can't Stand Evangelism), and assertion of the practical value of Christianity for individuals, where value has been determined by a market economy (as in Walt Kallestad's Entertainment Evangelism). Against such desiccated, overly rationalized, market-driven approaches, Stone says that the most evangelistic thing we can do today is to be a vibrant corporate embodiment of the kingdom of God.

On the one hand, who can defend "desiccated, overly rationalized, market-driven approaches" to anything. On the other hand, one gets the feeling from talking to many evangelism experts that they imagine that if Christians would just "do church" the right way people will magically find out about it and start knocking the doors down.

At Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix the ushers have noticed a pleasant trend--more and more twentysomethings are coming to the Cathedral. Is this a sign of a more faithful generation? According to USA Today, many younger adults are turning to faith despite less religious parents:

Pamela Moss worships every Sunday at Messiah Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., where they preach the Bible straight up, sing the old hymns "and then let me get on with my day."

But her son, George, 24, is a fervent Evangelical, witnessing to strangers and praying "in a church that looks like a gym. To me, he's just out the gate," his mystified mom says.

Stephen Rochester, 32, grew up "Jewish lite" in St. Louis, says his father, Marty. "So I was stunned when Stephen went religious with a capital R," switching to his Hebrew name, Shaya, and adopting the black hat of Hasidic Jews.

Mari Beth Nolan, 22, grew up a "Christmas and Easter" Catholic. Now she plans to go to work at a missionary clinic in Ecuador, leaving her parents proud — but confused.

Small wonder parents are befuddled. Though Gallup polls dating to the '50s say young adults are less likely to attend services or say religion is very important in their lives, clergy of all stripes say they are seeing a small wave of young adults who are more pious than their parents. And they're getting an earful from boomer moms and dads who range from shocked to delighted.

The USA Today article profiles the stories of several young adults--Protestant, Catholic, Jew and Muslim--who have surprised their parents with their faith. Read the entire article here. Listen to their stories on NPR here.

The average age of the typical Episcopal congregation is well above the national average. What are we doing to attract what may be a new faithful generation? What should we be doing?

We have all heard the joke--that Episcopalians are Presbyterians whose investments have done quite well. Behind the joke is a troubling issue--is our church really the church for all? Rob Dreher of the Dallas Morning News observes in his Beliefnet column that the class divisions within denominations is also affecting Catholic and Orthodox churches, and he asks why:

I'm generalizing, of course, but where I'm from, the religion of the working class and the poor is Pentecostalism -- and I use the term broadly to mean charismatic, non-denominational Christianity in the Protestant tradition. It's not that only the poor and working classes are drawn to Pentecostalism, but rather that if you are poor or in the working class, and you go to church, chances are the church you go to is Pentecostal, or at least Evangelical.

I was thinking about how unlikely it would be that Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Presbyterianism or other forms of the Christian faith that attract the middle-class intellectuals I know would appeal to the Ricky Sinclairs of the world. This is a complicated topic, and I don't have any conclusions to offer, so I'm just going to throw out my own thoughts, and invite yours. There is a spiritual depth and intellectual complexity to these forms of Christianity that appeals to middle-class intellectuals who have grown weary with the emotionalism and trendiness of much popular religion. On the other hand, I've thought for years as a Catholic, and still think as an Orthodox, how hard it would be for a working man who was broken and who needed Jesus to walk in off the street and find him at one of our churches. Oh, Jesus is there, make no mistake -- but he's a lot harder to find than at one of the charismatic churches.

Along those lines, Catholicism and Orthodoxy both have been the traditional religion of tens of millions of the world's poor, and still are. The question that I thought about yesterday, then, is probably primarily one concerning North American middle-class white people. And yet, the charismatic and Evangelical churches are having tremendous success in Latin America, winning converts from historic Catholicism. . . .

Why? I ask as a sociological question, not a theological question. What is it about our time that makes the heavy old forms of Christianity -- Orthodoxy and Catholicism -- so apparently ill-suited to compete with the amorphous Pentecostalism that's sweeping the poor? Is it the case that the very complexity and depth that appeals to middle-class North American intellectuals makes the faith relatively inaccessible to the masses? Is it the case that we live now in a demotic age, in which any institution that depends on hierarchies and traditional authority will struggle for the hearts of the common man? . . .

Is it the case that the more demotic forms of Protestant Christianity preach a gospel that, however twisted in some of its manifestations (e.g., the prosperity gospel), nevertheless holds out to suffering people the hope that their lives can change for the better -- whereas the older, more traditional forms of Christianity are more accepting of suffering as part of the human condition, to a degree that tips over into fatalism?

I do wonder if the poor (excluding the immigrant poor from Latin America) have any entry point into Catholicism or Orthodoxy. And why that is. And how it should change within the tradition, because it's impossible to imagine a Christian church that has no room for the poor and working classes. And: why does it seem that the Christians who sound most concerned about the welfare of the poor and working classes are those least likely to share their instinct toward traditional sexual morality? It's undoubtedly true that many of the traditional churches have ministries to help meet the material needs of the poor. But how many of the poor are becoming Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Orthodox, etc., because of them? Are these churches places where the poor could see themselves becoming a part of the congregation, or are the poor more likely to see them as vendors of charity, but only that? And if the latter, who's to blame, and why?

Read the entire essay here.

It seems to me that the hard question that Dreher asks about Catholism and Orthodoxy and the working class and the poor is equally applicable to the Episcopal church. Anglicanism, of course, is attracting the poor across the world. Are we doing enough to reach out beyond the middle class here in the Episcopal Church?

Will they ever return? Or is their fate still unknown? USA Today reports,

Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30 — both evangelical and mainline — who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research. And 34% of those said they had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30. That means about one in four Protestant young people have left the church.

"This is sobering news that the church needs to change the way it does ministry," says Ed Stetzer, director of Nashville-based LifeWay Research, which is affiliated with the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"It seems the teen years are like a free trial on a product. By 18, when it's their choice whether to buy in to church life, many don't feel engaged and welcome," says associate director Scott McConnell.

A world wide gathering of representatives of several Christian traditions in Toulouse, France, representing Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions met to develop a common code of conduct for those seeking converts to Christianity. The group is an initiative of both the Vatican and the World Council of Churches

An Ecumenical News International release describes the gathering in Toulouse was is an intra-Christian event on the theme, "Towards an ethical approach to conversion: Christian witness in a multi-religious world".

Present are about 30 Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal and Evangelical theologians and church representatives. They hope to formulate something that will show what a common code of conduct on religious conversion should look like from a Christian perspective.

"Conversion is a controversial issue not only in interreligious relations but in intra-Christian relations as well," said the Rev. Hans Ucko, the WCC's programme executive for inter-religious dialogue and cooperation. "In Latin America it is a source of tension between the Roman Catholic Church and the Pentecostal movement, while in other regions Orthodox churches often feel 'targeted' by some Protestant missionary groups."

Ucko said, "Since there are many accusations of 'sheep stealing' among Christians, we will most likely also focus on this issue. The consultation in Toulouse will be the opportunity for doing so."

The three-year study project, jointly being undertaken by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the WCC's programme on inter-religious dialogue and cooperation, bears the name, "An interreligious reflection on conversion: From controversy to a shared code of conduct". The study began in May 2006 in Lariano/Velletri, near Rome, and aims to produce a code of conduct on religious conversion commonly agreed among Christians by 2010.

Question to ponder: What is the line between proclamation and coercion? Is it ever appropriate to target other Christian traditions in our evangelism? What would you consider ethical evangelism?

Lisa Jones, writes in the South Wales Echo, that

the Archbishop of Wales met drinkers in a city centre bar for a debate on the pros and cons of religion.

Dr Barry Morgan led the debate, Is Religion Bad? at Dempsey’s Bar, Castle Street, Cardiff, last night at Solace, the church in a bar.

Foregoing high church dress, Dr Morgan conducted the Kilroy-style debate in front of around 50 people, wearing his dog collar and a sports jacket. A mixture of believers, atheists and drinkers from the bar downstairs combined to create a lively debate.

Dr Morgan said: “The questions were quite hard-hitting. There was no clunkiness there.

Read it all here

This is becoming a popular idea around the world. Cafe churches and pub churches as well as discussion groups held in public spaces reach out to those who might want to know more about Christianity. Have you tried it?

The Church by the Glades has been in the news lately. First, a few days ago it was running near the top of the Squidoo's list of most innovative churches. (At this moment it's not even in the top 60.) Not that we know what Squidoo is, mind you. But you might want to pop over and nominate your church if you feel it's deserving.

Anyhoo, second, we read in Gizmodo (via ) that the Church by the Glades pays you to attend its iServices. "What would convince your good selves to stop reading Gizmodo on a Sunday morning in favour of attending Holy Communion? A $15 iTunes voucher, you say? Church by the Glades, in Florida, hears you. In an effort to bribe new members, Church by the Glades will be handing out $15 iTunes vouchers to attendees of their iThemed services."

We figure that the bribe is just the front-end of a mutually beneficial relationship between the church and future tithers.

What we don't understand is why there are no Episcopal churches that have websites near as slick any you'll find on the Squidoo list. Surely it's not because of a cash flow problem. Isn't just because the investment wouldn't pay because the product behind the marketing is so poor?

A "third place" is a safe place between home and work, or home and school. Think soda fountain, barbershop, the pub, even church. Today Starbucks and its worthy competitors are playing that role:

Regulars at St. Arbucks are greeted by name and the baristas may have their favorite drink --Asimakoupoulos is a grande-drip purist -- ready when they reach the counter. Many modern churches have grown so large that people cannot know the names of many people with whom they are praying.

It's also crucial that these coffee sanctuaries are open to all kinds of people. At the Starbucks a short walk from his church, the pastor, people watching over the top of his laptop screen, has even seen believers reading their Bibles.

Writing in Leadership Journal, Asimakoupoulos noted: "At St. Arbucks, I've seen a rabbi mentoring a Torah student. A youth pastor disciplining a new convert. High school girls working on a group assignment. A book club sipping mochas while discussing a fiction author's plot." Could churches try to be more open to outsiders?

Read it here in Scripps News.

See also Getting religion at the pub.

A group of young Mormons, out to counter their church's stodgy image have hit upon the idea of a beefcake calendar. As they explain it:

The 2008 Men on a Mission calendar features twelve handsome returned Mormon missionaries from across the United States who, for the first time ever, have dared to pose bare-chested in a steamy national calendar.

Usually seen riding their bicycles and preaching door-to-door, these hunky young men of faith explode with sexuality on each calendar page. Hand-selected for their striking appearances and powerful spiritual commitment, the "devout dozen" are stepping away from the Mormon traditions of modest dress, and "baring their testimony" to demonstrate that they can have strong faith and be proud of who they are, both with a sense of individualism and a sense of humor.

Hat tip Andrew Sullivan.

Instead of a video game that shoots up a church, some evangelical churches are using a violent first person shooter video game in attempt to 'hook' teenage males into the Gospel message.

The New York Times reported yesterday how some congregations set up marathon sessions that allow groups of teens to play Halo 3, the mega-best-selling X-Box game that features the main character known only as the Master Chief who is armed to the teeth with all kinds of exotic weapons as he shoots up aliens in a mythical war. The game combines elements of a story-telling video game and a classic first-person shooter.

[In] the basement on a recent Sunday at the Colorado Community Church in the Englewood area of Denver, where Tim Foster, 12, and Chris Graham, 14, sat in front of three TVs, locked in violent virtual combat as they navigated on-screen characters through lethal gun bursts. Tim explained the game’s allure: “It’s just fun blowing people up.”

Once they come for the games, Gregg Barbour, the youth minister of the church said, they will stay for his Christian message. “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” Mr. Barbour wrote in a letter to parents at the church.

Evangelical churches have been adept at experimenting with marrying popular secular culture with a gospel message, but this has many evangelical leaders unhappy. For one thing, the game is rated "M," which means that in theory the game should not be bought by those under 17 years of age. Some parents wonder at the wisdom of a church supplying and sanctioning a game that they would not allow in their own homes.

A more basic question is whether the theme and game play of relentless violence can be appropriately connected with the Christian Gospel.

But the question arises: What price to appear relevant? Some parents, religious ethicists and pastors say that Halo may succeed at attracting youths, but that it could have a corroding influence. In providing Halo, churches are permitting access to adult-themed material that young people cannot buy on their own.

“If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it,” said James Tonkowich, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a nonprofit group that assesses denominational policies. “My own take is you can do better than that.”

Daniel R. Heimbach, a professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, believes that churches should reject Halo, in part because it associates thrill and arousal with killing.

“To justify whatever killing is involved by saying that it’s just pixels involved is an illusion,” he said.

On the other hand,

Hundreds of churches use Halo games to connect with young people, said Lane Palmer, the youth ministry specialist at the Dare 2 Share Ministry, a nonprofit organization in Arvada, Colo., that helps churches on youth issues.

“It’s very pervasive,” Mr. Palmer said, more widespread on the coasts, less so in the South, where the Southern Baptist denomination takes a more cautious approach. The organization recently sent e-mail messages to 50,000 young people about how to share their faith using Halo 3. Among the tips: use the game’s themes as the basis for a discussion about good and evil.

At Sweetwater Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., Austin Brown, 16, said, “We play Halo, take a break and have something to eat, and have a lesson,” explaining that the pastor tried to draw parallels “between God and the devil.”

Gregg Barbour, youth pastor at the Colorado Community Church wrote in a letter to parents, tthat God calls ministers to be “fishers of men.”

“Teens are our ‘fish,” he wrote. “So we’ve become creative in baiting our hooks.”

Read: Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church

News from the Church Center (815):

"Latino and Asian populations are among the fastest-growing in North America, and should become greater priorities for Episcopal Church evangelism, members of Executive Council said October 27 while reviewing church membership and attendance statistics for the year 2006.

Overall U.S. Latino/Hispanic population is projected to grow by 34%, and Asian by 33%, in the decade 2000-2010, compared with 13% Black, 7% White, and 3% White, non-Hispanic, according to statistics presented by Kirk Hadaway, the Episcopal Church's director of research.

Multicultural mission is essential in these contexts, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the Council, gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, for its regular fall meeting.

The seven Latin American and Caribbean dioceses of the Episcopal Church's Province 9 posted a 1,741-person gain in membership in 2006 for a 72,084 total, according to the aggregated Parochial Report data reported by Hadaway. 

Four overseas dioceses -- Colombia, Dominican Republic, Micronesia, and Puerto Rico -- posted growth in membership and average Sunday attendance in 2006, Hadaway said. Domestic dioceses posting similar gains for 2006 numbered 11: Alaska, Central Pennsylvania, Eastern Oregon, Eau Claire, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Upper South Carolina. The Navajoland Area Mission also reported growth.

Other upturns for Episcopalians included a 2.5% increase in plate and pledge offerings churchwide to more than $1.3 billion in 2006 in domestic dioceses, with the average parishioner's pledge increasing to $2,088 from $1,979. The value of total investments of all domestic congregations also climbed to nearly $4.2 billion in 2006, up from more than $3.9 billion in 2005."

Read the rest here: Episcopal Life Online

Claudia Mair Burney, writes of her search for a spiritual home and how an Episcopal Church, and the artwork it had on the side of the building has drawn her in.

"Every city has its mythology. Inkster is no exception. Said Anglican church is called St. Clements Episcopal Church (see piccha above). I've never been to a service there, but I'm going to venture to say that it's probably predominately African American (Inkster is very segregated. We just don't mix it up like all that). Now, I could be wrong about St. Clements members, and if I am I'll gladly report back. So think of this African American Episcopal church in the heart of Inkster. And the mythology attached to it? Weeeeeeell, all my life people who don't go to St. Clements Episcopal church has called it, Black Jesus Church."

[snip]

I don't know why, but in the materials I collected today, and from a peek at the online history they give of the church on their website, nobody mentions that big, honkin' black Jesus.

Nuthin'!

Not how long he's hung there. Was he there from the very beginnings of the budding parish? A gift that came later? I dunno. And why can't you see Him on the church's piccha!? No photo of Him in the parish photos on the website, either.

Maybe it's taken for granted that everybody in Inkster knows he's there. Maybe they're a little salty that people call their parish Black Jesus church, totally dissin' its patron saint. While there is a drawing of him on a flier, I could get no satisfaction finding any history of him.

Still. You gotta love something that homey and delightful. I plan to attend Holy Eucharist on Sunday morning. Maybe someone will tell me about him then.

Read the rest the story and see the pictures here.

In the most recent issue of Christianity Today's Books & Culture magazine, Christian Smith writes:

There is a new and important stage in life in American culture, and it is not entirely clear that the Christian church understands or particularly knows what to do with it. I am talking about what scholars call "emerging adulthood." This is the time of life between ages 18 and 30, roughly, a phase which in recent decades has morphed into quite a new experience for many.

The key passage in his persuasive essay, at least for church leaders, reads:

Jeffrey Arnett explored the religious beliefs and practices of the more than one hundred emerging adults he interviewed in various locations around the country. Here is what he concluded:

The most interesting and surprising feature of emerging adults' religious beliefs is how little relationship there is between the religious training they received throughout childhood and the religious beliefs they hold at the time they reach emerging adulthood … . In statistical analyses [of interview subjects' answers], there was no relationship between exposure to religious training in childhood and any aspect of their religious beliefs as emerging adults … . This is a different pattern than is found in adolescence [which reflects greater continuity] … . Evidently something changes between adolescence and emerging adulthood that dissolves the link between the religious beliefs of parents and the beliefs of their children.

Although the transmission of religious faith is not a central concern of Arnett's, he still finds this observation startling. He writes, "How could it be that childhood religious training makes no difference in the kinds of religious beliefs and practices people have by the time they reach emerging adulthood? It doesn't seem to make sense … . It all comes to naught in emerging adulthood? Yet that seems to be the truth of it, surprising as that may be." Need I say that these findings raise serious questions? To be sure, Arnett is not working with nationally representative data, and so his findings must be viewed with some skepticism. Even so, the very possibility should make Christians sit up and notice.

It's becoming increasingly common of late to hear of Episcopal clergy going out of their parishes to local pubs and bars as a way of connecting with people with questions about God. Often the event will start by posing a provocative question and then letting discussion flow organically from that. Today's news brings a report of just such an event in Walnut Creek CA that's notable because it included the diocesan bishop as one of the clergy:

"The ale flowed as Episcopal clerics, including the bishop, went to a downtown pub recently to talk faith with 20- and 30-somethings.

Churchgoers on a mission to sober up sinners? Not at all. 'Faith on Tap' is about bringing together young adults hungry for community, rousing discussion and a meaningful life. It's spreading across the country faster than a moonshine delivery.

In the Pyramid Brewery's Diablo Room, Bishop Marc Andrus, the Rev. Phil Brochard, and parishioners from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Walnut Creek, and more than 20 others gathered around tables laden with glasses and pitchers.

The topic amid the cacophony spilling in from the adjacent main room: 'Is there a God pill?' It was the second installment in a three-part series called 'Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.'"

Read the rest here.

"Church shopping has been rightfully attacked as a consumerist, individualistic approach to faith—as a shopper, I do what 'works for me' on a Sunday morning, and I can change churches as fast as my preferences change. All the same, we’ve nearly all done it to some degree or another," writes Amy Frykholm on Theolog, the blog of The Christian Century.

Read about her recent experience.

The Sunday Telegraph this week reported that measured by regular attendance, Catholics now outnumber Anglicans in England. Church of England representatives disputed the figures, but even by their numbers it's close and average Sunday attendance is less than 1 million. (In a touch of irony, in the same issue the Telegraph ran lists of suggestions for Midnite masses.)

Why don't people attend church? Is it bad memories from childhood? Ruth Gledhill of The Times reports that,

The research organisation Christian Research has commissioned the company Retail Maxim to send mystery worshippers in unannounced to judge the sermon, welcome, atmosphere, warmth, comfort and appearance of churches around the country.

First to be assessed were churches in Telford, subject to a recent pilot. Early next year, mystery worshippers will visit churches in the West Midlands.

The scheme mirrors that run by the satirical Christian website ShipofFools, the main difference being that ShipofFools uses volunteers who are Christian. [Retail Maxim will be paying its worship/shoppers £30]

Christian Research wants non-Christians to assess the churches because, in common with increasing numbers of church leaders, the organisation wishes to find out what does and does not work for the reluctant churchgoer. Christian Research is working with ShipofFools to promote the project.
...

The non-church goers will be experienced mystery shoppers who are used to assessing the service offered by hotels, shops and restaurants.

The Telford pilot involved a range of denominations and styles of service from Anglo-Catholic to a service involving a “lot of people lying on the floor and being healed.”

The results had been “amazingly positive”, she said.

Mrs Hewitt, whose background is in commercial research, said it was essential that the churches gained an insight into how they were viewed from the “outside-in” by non-churchgoers.

She said: “We have had some of our mystery worshippers saying that they were really amazed by what they found - by the atmosphere and the welcome before the service, when they went in and after the service and the fellowship.

“It was all so far from their expectations that they had before they came in - often based on childhood when they saw the church as a boring experience where you were made to feel guilty.”

The Episcopal missionary work among asian people began more than a century ago in the western parts of the United States. Over the years the Episcopal Church has been key in creating evangelical foundations, worship sites and congregations that are specifically sensitive to the needs of asian american and recent immigrants.

Asian Week has a feature this week that covers the history of the Episcopal Church's evangelism efforts in this area.

From the article comes the account of the most recent work:

"In 1973, the Episcopal Church’s general convention established the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry to serve the growing numbers of immigrants from Asian countries.

Today, the Ministry has 120 missions, congregations or ministries that are served by more than 100 Asian or EAM-related clergy, including two bishops. The Asian church members, including 18 Chinese congregations, comprise approximately 1.8 percent of the 2.5 million Episcopalians.

‘I see the rise of Asian American leadership in the Episcopal Church, the increasing level of their involvement in all aspects of the Church’s life and at all levels of its activities,’ the Rev. Dr. Winfred B. Vergara says. Based at The Episcopal Church Center of New York, Vergara has served as the current missioner for the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry since 2004.

Vergara also predicts a ‘golden age’ and the ‘flowering of Asian American ministry’ in the Episcopal Church. At its 158th convention, the Diocese of California adopted a five-year plan to develop multiethnic and multicultural ministries. The diocesan convention also called on Bishop Marc Andrus to install a multicultural commissioner by June 2008. California clergy and lay leaders were asked to complete two sessions of anti-racism training over the next two years."

Read the rest here.

Adele Banks of Religion News Service writes:

Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven't darkened the door of a church in the last six months think it is "full of hypocrites," and even more of them consider Christianity to be more about organized religion than about loving God and people, according to a new survey.

Almost half those surveyed--44 percent--agreed that "Christians get on my nerves."

But the survey of "unchurched" Americans by LifeWay Research also found that some 78 percent said they would be willing to listen to someone who wanted to tell them about his or her Christian beliefs.

The Episcopal Church of the Advent in Logan Square offers a service for dogs and dog walkers every Sunday. Check out the video here. The story is here:

"It came out of this observation that we have so many people in the neighborhood who are dog owners," says Rev. Sandra Castillo, rector at the Episcopal Church of the Advent and La Iglesia Episcopal de Nuestra Senora de las Americas. "We thought this might be a good way to reach out."

"We used to have an 8 o'clock service, but it ended in September and we figured why not try this?" adds Sonia Davidson, a member of the congregation, dog person and moving force behind the idea. "It's kid-friendly, pet-friendly. If you're walking your dog, you stop in."

The services are short -- 15 or 20 minutes -- and simple. Some readings, prayers and announcements in a corner of the beautiful century-old church.

"We went through the prayer book and it's basically the morning prayer service," says John Medenwald, one of the five church members who take turns officiating at the service, which is lay-organized and led.

Theology on Tap is a Catholic program that's been around for over a quarter century, and in Boston, the lecture series is becoming increasingly popular. Several churches take turns sponsoring the event at various bars around town; most recently, Church of the Advent, an Episcopal church on Beacon Hill, sponsored the event at Cheers as part of its "Portraits of Jesus" series:

The series at the Beacon Hill Cheers is the 14th for Church of the Advent, said Gray, who aims to organize three series a year. Summers feature a series called “The Gospels According to . . . ,” drawing on such influences as the Simpsons, J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Matrix” and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“It’s incorporating culture, arts, hot topics,” said Sarah Livingston, 25, of Jamaica Plain, who attends Park Street Church. “It’s intellectual and stimulating. It’s relevant.”

Theology on Tap is just one way that churches are reaching out to adults in their 20s and 30s. The Friends at the Advent, for example, sponsors community groups, a Flannery O’Connor reading group and a dart night at a local bar.

Park Street Church’s Cafe (for 20-somethings) and Crosswalk (for 30-somethings) ministries draw 200 people total most weeks, according to assistant pastor Dr. Chris Sherwood, who pointed out that Park Street has had young-adult programs since the early 1900s.

“Once you hit a critical mass, it becomes a gathering place for folks,” added Rev. Jeff Schuliger, Park Street’s minister of small groups. Currently, associate minister Rev. Daniel Harrell is leading a group of parishioners blogging about “Living Levitically” in conjunction with his sermon series (www.parkstreet.org).

At the packed midweek Theology on Tap session, Christa Carter, 25, of Roxbury, pointed out that often the church feels like it belongs to the previous generation.

“People our age are disillusioned with the church,” said Carter, who doesn’t attend Advent but regularly attends Theology on Tap. “I want it to be mine . . . to see how it fits in with our generation.”

“It’s a healthy place for a skeptic to walk into,” added Cleveland. “They can ask a challenging question and not be brushed off.”

Read the full story.

Tom Ehrich sees opportunity where others have voiced frustration when looking at the results of the recent Pew survey on Religion and Public Life. If people are seeking and moving from church to church, rather than bemoan the fact, we should be getting prepared for those who are going to be coming.

"The Pew findings that religious behavior is marked by 'fluidity,' not consistency, might frustrate institutional managers who had hoped brand loyalty would last a lifetime. But it strikes me as good news that people take their faith seriously enough to examine it and to go in search of real bread.

Rather than pout about brand disloyalty, I'd suggest that denominations and congregations prepare themselves to receive these seekers when they go seeking. After all, it was the refusal of major denominations to notice that baby boomers started leaving in 1964 that caused their steep decline in membership. If you don't see the churn, how do you examine your enterprise and respond to the churn?

If 'none of the above' is the fastest-growing American religious affiliation, then we need to ask: What do adults in America find missing? What movement of the human spirit are we in the religious world failing to sense? What matrix of needs are we ignoring in our stubborn insistence on tradition? What questions are we unable to hear?

Rather than complain about the inadequacies of young adults in failing to grasp the virtues of Protestantism, for example, Protestant course-setters should examine the lives of today's young adults and build bridges to them. There is no virtue in ignoring one age cohort in order to keep an older age cohort satisfied. We should try self-examination, not blame."

We covered the release and some initial reactions to the Pew Reports earlier on the Lead.

Read the rest here.

There are plenty of anecdotal stories about hostile responses to any attempt to talk about Christian faith on today's college campuses. There are also stories about how that sort of conversation is gratefully received by students. Which view, hostile or grateful, is right?

Most people tend to imagine that hostility toward faith and christian belief is the more commonly encountered reception.

But new evidence shows something different:

"The conventional wisdom, as it turns out, is not quite right.

From the pollsters come recent data showing that religion and spirituality are alive and well at colleges and universities. A recent study by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA finds that more than half of college juniors say 'integrating spirituality' into their lives is very important. Today's juniors also tend to pray (67%, according to the UCLA study) and 41% believe it's important, even essential, to 'follow religious teachings' in everyday life.

In these and similar measures, the college population tends to lag behind the population at large, but not by much. Other new research suggests that one's experience in higher education is not the cause of any falling away from faith. Survey results from University of Texas researchers find that students are less likely to be secularized than others ages 18-25. In other words, navigating the working world takes a larger toll on a young person's faith than braving the nation's supposedly godless college campuses.

It's not just trendy Eastern or New Age religions to which students are gravitating. Christianity is holding its own, too, in part because many campus Christians are showing a different side of their religion than the one that has lent irresistible fodder to comedians and given it a bad reputation in some quarters.

Young Christians, college students or otherwise, tend to emphasize different public concerns than the old-guard Christian Right. Like the older Christian generation, they do consider abortion an important issue, according to a survey by Relevant magazine, but the same survey finds that they tend to care less than their elders about asserting Christian prerogatives in the public square and resisting the advance of gay rights."

Read the rest here.