Alpha: Effective Outreach
Christendom is dead. It used to be that Christianity was referenced in textbooks, the media, the arts, and in daily conversation, with certain regularity; it was assumed that most people, at least in America, were Christian. It used to be, but not any more. It’s a shock to realize when you’re a Christian, and are interacting casually with […]
Leaving Planet Earth: The Secret
Every person on Planet Earth has at least one thing in common. Regardless of creed, geography or age: We all want to leave the world in a better state than the way we found it. I have drawn encouragement from numerous influential rabbis throughout history. The rabbis I particularly enjoy are the ones who have committed […]
Becoming an Inside Out Church
“Oh, that God the gift would give us to see ourselves as others see us” Robert Burnes The Declining Church Tom Bandy observed, during his recent visit to Australia, that the decline of mainstream institutional Christianity was about ten years more advanced than in the USA and that some of the Australian responses to the […]
Between Thought and Faith, Culture and Religion
Background to Dialogue The following paper by Doris Lax and response by Tom Bandy were part of the presentations to the annual meeting of the North American Paul Tillich Society in November 2000. This society is one of the largest and most diverse academic societies associated with the American Academy of Religion. Doris Lax is […]
Breaking Through to a New Sense of Mission
Leading congregational leaders to deepening their spiritual discipline and breaking through to a new sense of mission…a story… What happens when denominational issues impact upon the local congregation? What happens when these issues cause people to leave and de-stabilize the congregation? What happens when the Senior Minister decides to leave and takes significant leadership and […]
Giving
“Giving USA”, the definitive publication on charitable giving, has recently come out with their 2004 issue which has the giving numbers for 2003. The results are not very good, but somewhat expected. For 2003 Americans gave away 240.72 billion dollars which is an increase of 0.6% when adjusted for inflation. This is on par with […]