Viral Faith

"The important study underscored the growing tolerance in many directions--gender, sexual identity, race, and ethnicity--as perhaps the most constructive and attractive element of change in American religious communities, along with growing ethnic diversity and compassion for those in need.  But the same study also noted political use of religion and divisions along political, class, and racial and ethnic lines as what continues to drive people from membership and activity in congregations."   --Michael Plekon in "Church As Community, Community as Church" In my current role as Superintendent, I have the privilege of visiting quite a few churches.  Within the conference of churches to whom I am responsible, there is an incredible diversity of contexts and communities: house churches, African immigrant churches, Hispanic family churches, traditional rural churches, suburban churches, urban churches, small, medium and large churches, all centered around the denominatio...

John 15:1-3 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  The life of a church community is not static but always changing, always evolving or decaying.  There is a certain ebb and flow that is inherent in the life of any living organism.  Times of development, times of growth, times of strengthening, times of disease, times of reproduction, and ultimately times of death.  A church body is a living thing.  Despite church growth experts opinions, I do not believe a local church body was created to last forever, but like our lives, has an unique lifespan that is created for the purposes of demonstrating the Kingdom of God in its socio-historical context.  I have seen some wonderful and powerful communities of God that had relatively short life cycles, but were beautiful in their creation and fruitful in their ...