Tag Archives: Christian Chronicle

Saturday Six-Pack (13)

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May’s final weekend–unreal!  Still, it’s another great day for some “Wandering & Wondering”.

As usual, this Saturday Six-Pack brings a weekly dose of online pieces, written to inform or inspire.  I typically choose faith-focused or ministry-geared articles, but my “disorderly pile of who-knows-what” nature gets a say every so often too!

Today’s pile:

1) Can We Prove the Existence of God?
For all the arguments over this topic, some finely nuanced discussion of topics like knowledge, certainty, and evidence is needed.  Some of that is found here.

2) Being a Pastor to a Pastor
Diane Roth recounts when the table turned on who was caring for who.

3) How Grace Motivates
Grace gets a reputation as soft, something that gets taken advantage of.  A reassessment might help us see it as the most motivating force in all the world.

4) Quebec: Canada’s Prodigal Province
Christianity Today explores Evangelical Christians are aiming to impact this blatantly post-Christian region of the continent.

5) Why Finding Your Passion is a Myth
Been longing for a life lived in perfect unison with your natural passions?  It might be waiting for you… right beside the Loch Ness Monster and Iraq’s WMD’s.

6) Boringness: The Secret to Great Leadership
With that title, I’ll just nudge you to click on this insightful piece from Joel Stein.

Have a great weekend, friends–renew yourself and reverence God.

Churches of Christ in Decline

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If you follow me on Twitter (@jasonbandura), you may have seen this link already.

For the rest of you (after you go find me at Twitter ; ) ), below is an excerpt from an article posted by Michael Hanegan, preacher at the Central Church of Christ in Chandler, Oklahoma.

Here’s a sampling:

The Christian Chronicle recently released an article detailing the specifics about losses both in membership and congregations among Churches of Christ from 2003-Present. Their conclusion? In the last ten years we have lost one out of every sixteen members are have closed three congregations every two weeks for the last ten years. These numbers should be sobering. In the time that I have been at the Central Church of ChristI am personally aware of four congregations that have closed their doors, and know of a number of congregations that are barely hanging on numerically (not to mention other churches that are teetering on the edge of fracture and collapse).

But why?

The comments section on the Chronicle article are fascinating. Allow me to summarize some of what I heard from those who have responded publicly on the Chronicle website.

  • Good! God is finally cleaning house in his church! This is the purge we have needed to keep the church pure and the false teachers away.
  • If we were more evangelistic then we would experience growth like we used to (hear here the 40’s and 50’s).
  • Well if we weren’t so legalistic and addicted to patternism and John Locke we wouldn’t have this problem.
  • This is just terrible. What can we do?

If you wish to see the entire Christian Chronicle article allude to (and its comments section), it can be seen HERE.  The rest of Michael’s reflections can be found HERE.

A number of my most regular readers share with me a heritage in the Churches of Christ.  What do you say?

Why are Churches of Christ across North America in decline?

Please leave your comments below, and let the conversation begin.

(If you desire a greater challenge, hit me over on Twitter and give you reply in 140 characters or less!)