Christian magazines online

If you have not read an online magazine listed below, give it a try. Some are new and some are ones never linked here before.

• CCM. Christ, Community, Music. Modern christian music. Includes audio and video.
• Christian Computing magazine
• The Christian Pulse. "The place where cutting-edge faith meets the global community, without shame and without reservation. Take Action, Get Involved, Share Life, Be A Light..."
• Christianity today online
• Christian Women Online
• Christian Women Today
• Collide."Where media and the church converge"
• Grace Centered
• Guide. A story magazine for kids.
• Guideposts. The familiar magazine with inspiring stories of inspiring people.
  The web site logo shows as "Beta" but the magazine is colorful and links work.
• Heartlight
• Lookout
• New Man
• Plugged in Online. From the Focus on the Family folks.
• Precipice. For and about the emerging church.
• PRISM. By Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA)
• Relevant
• Sojourners. Faith, politics, and culture. Winner of 22 awards.
• TheOOZE. The desire of TheOOZE is to create environments where church leaders (traditional teachers/theologians as well as emerging storytellers/artists) can converse about and collaborate on resources and experiences for the broader faith community. This is done by providing places for people to gather and communicate both online and offline about how to be the story of Christ to our emerging culture."
• Virtual Christian. By the United Church of Christ (UCC) .

News roundup

USA Today has a great web page for blogs, podcasts, and videocasts related to religion and spirituality (Christianity section).

Another recent find is the ton of bibles and similar spiritual books that Google now has available for online viewing. One example is "The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts".

Below are links to religion news in the past several weeks.

• Some Southern Baptists push for more emphasis on environmental issues
• Southern Baptists baptize fewest in a decade
• Dead Sea scroll on rare display
• Vatican says it's OK to believe in aliens
• Emerging Church movement could change religious landscape
• Evangelicals now say movement is too political
• Florida debates Christian license plate
• Study: Theology impacts Protestant bank accounts
• The Bible is the all-time favorite book
• Religious teaching straight to an iPod
• Ted Turner apologizes, joins churches to fight malaria
• Givers are happier than misers

The Millenium Matrix

The book "Millennium Matrix" has an online site with a timeline of changes in communications:

• Oral
• Print
• Broadcast
• Digital

The Oral timeline page states, "Jesus lived and spoke in an era so profoundly different than ours that we can miss the full meaning of his teachings. ... His world was not our world."

Though the book is primarily about communications and culture by the futurist author, it includes references to religion. That's normal for a person who graduated with a degree in theology and communication and has been a lay preacher. He also mentions God on the Broadcast page for example.

But perhaps tellingly, on the Digital communications page, when I searched for "God" or "Jesus", I got "Not found".

The book does seem like it might be fertile ground for religious group discussion, Sunday School classes included.

Wireless devices may affect church sound system

Oh, great -- one step forward, two back. The FCC plans to open up frequencies now in the analog TV range to any wireless device once all TV stations have to transmit digital signals in 2009.

The problem is that devices such as church wireless microphones now use the frequencies "in between" the analog TV ones. These are called the "White Spaces". Once the whole frequency range is open to all wireless devices, cell phones, Blackberries, and more could wreck havoc during church services. The Shure Pro Audio site linked above has more information on the matter.

Some in Congress want to speed up opening these white spaces; others want testing on interference done and protection in place before opening up the frequencies. For example, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), an ordained Baptist minister, introduced a bill, "Interference Protection for Existing Television Band Devices Act of 2007".

Read more about The Dark Side of White Spaces and decide if you need to contact your members of Congress.

Mary, did you know?

Membership is down - give more?

No sooner had I posted about Christian Stewardship being cheapened by equating with money than I noticed (on this blog) the news item from UM Reported, "Changing demographics impacts funds".

The article has several interesting facts and figures. One negative action popped out at me, though. The GCFA governing board, in response to the decline in giving, has penned legislation that, "among other things, the legislation aims to hold leaders at all levels of the church accountable in their responsibility to promote, support and model Christian giving."

Whoa! So let me get this straight. The denomination is seeing a decline in membership and a decline in giving. The solution is to give more? It sounds like the old semi-joke about some office managers, "Management has observed that morale is low. Beatings will commence until morale improves." Maybe we are getting more concerned with funding than with meeting the spiritual needs of the least, the lost, and the last.

Perhaps if we focused our actions on them, as Luke shows us Jesus did, we'd be getting more members, who would want to contribute to the great spiritual work being done. Are we putting the cart before the horse? Are we failing to see the spiritual forest for the financial trees?

Stop demeaning Christian stewardship!

It's fall and the most common time for "Stewardship campaigns" a phrase that makes me cringe. Christian stewardship encompasses a very broad area. As Clarence Stoughton said, "Stewardship is everything you do after you say yes to Jesus Christ.". Churches demean stewardship and ignore the many needed actions areas of Christian Stewardship when they make it all about money.

What churches usually really mean is "annual financial campaign". Using the word "stewardship" makes some people feel better about asking for money, but it seems disingenuous. Sometimes churches add little "talent" cards to justify calling it a Stewardship campaign. But that too barely scratches the surface of Christian stewardship. And it's tacit admission that the campaign is a financial campaign running under cover of the term "stewardship".

Churches do need financial support. There's nothing wrong with a financial campaign. Let's be more honest about the process and call it just that. Doing so may also defuse criticism by unchurched people that churches are sly, world-like, or hypocritical.

And let's have true Stewardship campaigns in our churches. Ones where we inform members about all aspects of stewardship and encourage their daily involvement as stewards for Christ.

Let's stop equating Christian stewardship with asking for financial support, needed though it is. Let's be up front and honest when we conduct our annual financial campaigns.

[cross-posted from Open Mind Dave blog]

Rushing on the Day of Rest

"Hurry" sickness. Most of us have it. And it's not good. A recent sermon at our church was about rushing around on the Sabbath and the need for a true day of rest.

Rev. Dave referred to Blue Laws, child labor, and the impact of our computerized world. Some points he made:

• Blue Laws "protected" Sundays for Christians, but now that most State legislatures allow businesses to be open on Sundays, guess who's patronizing them? Christians.
• Sunday school started as education of children on their only non-work day.
• Computers were supposed to give us more free time. Instead, they we have let them get us to do even more work in the same period of time. We are busier than ever, even on Sundays.
• We have increased the amount of business work we do, even taking more of it home.
• We need to find the courage to "Just say no" to added work.
• Learn to accept God's gift of rest.
• Slow down, stop, and let your cup fill with true inner peace -- Shalom.

Americans are the most productive workers in world, but it's because we work long and hard, even taking it home. (Mea Cupla!) That's great for a business' bottom line, but we need to take a hard look at work vs. rest.

When asked by a rabbi why he was rushing by, a man replied, "I'm running to work to make a living."

"Are you sure", asked the rabbi, "that your livelihood is running away from you and you have to rush to catch it up? Perhaps it's rushing toward you and all you have to do is stand still and let it catch up with you." [link]

On the seventh day, God rested. Do we think He was a slacker? Do we think we're better than God? Is it even really restful to try to rush around and squeeze in as many non-business activities as we can on a weekend, even Sunday? Do we incorrectly consider resting to be "doing nothing"?

Related links

• Are you missing out on a blessing from God? (Good News Magazine)
• Child Labor
• Child labor in America, 1908-1912
• Blue Law (Wikipedia)
• Keeping the Sunday Sabbath - Does such a Thing Still Exist? (UMC.org)
• The origin of Sunday School
• Report: U.S. Workers Are Most Productive (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Robert Raikes and Sunday Schools
• Sabbath-keeping is a discipline and a blessing (Interpreter magazine)
• sleep. sabbath. surrender.
• Take back your Sabbath (Christianity Today)
• What religious groups say about the Sabbath
• When it's Rush Hour all Day Long: Finding Peace in a Hurry-Sick World (book)

Cafe sermon prep?

The Allan R. Bevere blog, host to the "Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup", has periodic polls.  I found one interesting -- "Where do you prepare your sermons?"

 

http://arbevere.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/pollresults/098

 

The interesting part is that more pastors now prepare sermons at a cafe than at church, though most do at home.  Perhaps cafes are getting more popular as a sermon preparation spot because many have Internet available (for research) as well as good lattes. The poll size is not large enough to warrant a high confidence level (+- 5%), but interesting nevertheless.

Religion videos

The advent of YouTube has brought a slew of videos to the web. Here's a few that are tagged as "religion" or "church":

• Moving a 100-year old church, complete with choral music - 4 min.
• Church-hunting (King of the Hill) - 9 min.
• The Orthodox Church - A Visual Journey - 9 min.
• The Spirituality of Early Christianity - 26 min.
• Mr Bean Goes to Church (a classic) - 4 min.
• Baby got book - a rap about "I like big [KJV] Bibles" - 4:24 min.
• Inside Scientology (From Britian's "The Big SHow") - 21 min.