Jennifer Taylor has confessed her sin publicly: she’s bored at church. But unlike many people, she’s not interested in a more whizz-bang service with hipper music or preaching. “I’m not looking for a slicker sermon series or a faux-hawked worship leader or designer coffee in the back lobby.” And she’s not about to leave her church to find a different mountain to climb:

“I also believe you make a commitment to one local church and invest in community with those believers long-term, I’m not going to start shopping for a new church. Besides, all those churches would also have long sermons and rambling prayers and worship leaders in skinny jeans. That’s the problem.”

So what is she bored with? What is she looking for? Taylor cites an article by Brett McCracken…

I ended Part 1 of this post with a question-what is the church to do about the growing ranks of the de-churched? I believe the answer depends on which de-churched group one is talking about. In Part 1 I identified two sides of the de-churched population-those who have left the church because they had received a false gospel, and those who have left because they’ve encountered the true gospel.

Let’s start with the false gospel side. As Matt Chandler explained, these de-churched are fed, knowingly or unknowingly, a false gospel of morality. They believe that if they just follow God’s rules he will bless their lives. When things fail to work out as promised, they bail on the church. Christian Smith, a sociologist of religion, has called this belief MTD-moralistic therapeutic…

In days gone by, missional efforts were focused on presenting and demonstrating the love of Christ to non-Christians. But in the 1980s a new term was coined to describe the growing number of North Americans without any significant church background. They were called the unchurched. Untold numbers of books were written about them. Ministry conferences discussed them. Church leaders orchestrated worship services to attract them.

The shift from “evangelizing non-Christians” to “reaching the unchurched” was perceived as benign at the time, but it represented an important shift in our understanding of mission. The church was no longer just a means by which Christ’s mission would advance in the world, it was also the end of that mission. The goal wasn’t simply to introduce the unchurched to Christ, but—as the…

Some time ago, the folks at Zondervan recorded a video of me discussing The Divine Commodity. I had never seen the footage, but recently discovered it on their site. If you’d like to know a little more about the book and why I wrote it, here’s your chance.

In other book news, my friend and colleague from Leadership Journal, Brandon O’Brien is close to releasing his first book The Strategically Small Church. I’ve already read an advanced copy and it’s really fantastic. Brandon does a great job of showing how intentionally small congregation may be the ideal instrument to impact our rapidly shifting culture. But he does this without discrediting the role of larger churches. What I especially love about the book is how much research he put into…

What should worship look like? Hymns or choruses? High liturgy or free-flowing? Electric or acoustic? Contemporary or traditional? Energetic or reflective? These questions have caused the fracture of many churches, and the battles fought have left many wounded and disenchanted with ministry. They are also questions which I do not address in my recent book, The Divine Commodity.

Apparently there is an excerpt from the book floating around the web from which people have wrongly concluding that I favor a particular style of worship over another, or that I am somehow anti-contemporary worship and much prefer sedate forms of ecclesiastical gathering and would even go so far as to judge one style as “wrong.” (The very idea that a style can be wrong is funny to begin with. That’s like saying…

Prepare to be offended. A billboard in New Zealand has just gone up that shows Mary and Joseph in bed together. Joseph looks dejected. The caption says: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.” What exactly are people to conclude from such an ad–call the Holy Spirit for a good time?Here’s the craziest part–the billboard was put up by a church. A church! Who needs Christopher Hitchens with Christians like these around?If you recall, I wrote a few posts earlier this year about an atheist ad campaign that started on buses in the UK. The posters said: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Those ads created a lot of buzz and controversy. They’ve also spread from London to the US, Canada,…

Rick McKinley is pastor of Imago Dei in Portland, Oregon, and the guy behind the Advent Conspiracy movement. I first interviewed Rick for Leadership a few years ago. We also serve together on the Origins Project. A few weeks ago Rick interviewed me about The Divine Commodity for one of the Advent Conspiracy podcasts this month.

I’m pleased to see that even Time Magazine has caught wind of AC. The recent article juxtaposes Advent Conspiracy with the Religious Right’s crusade to keep Christ at the center of the shopping and marketing frenzy of this season. Folks on the Christian and political right are blasting retailers who use “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” in their advertising.

McKinley and Advent Conspiracy seem to have a better grasp not only on the purpose of Advent,…

In October I sat down for a brief interview with Brian Babylon, a host on Chicago Public Radio’s “Vocolo” (95.5 FM), about my participation with the Interfaith Youth Core conference at Northwestern University. We had a great conversation about matters of faith, culture, and the church.

In December, Vocolo is doing a series of broadcasts about faith. Brian invited me to be a guest each Friday this month to discuss familiar, but often misunderstood, stories from the Bible and how they apply to contemporary issues. I’ve had the privilege of doing a number of Christian radio programs before, but this was a first: 30 minutes to talk about the Bible and apply it on public radio.

December 4th was my first segment. I was able to do it in studio…

Promise Keepers new focus on women and messianic Jews:“Promise Keepers is not a men’s ministry. It is a ministry for men.” -Raleigh Washington president of Promise Keepers. Read more.

The Manhattan Declaration’s focus on abortion, gay marriage, and religious liberty:

“We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues. A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.” -Chuck Colson. Read more.

Pastor on relocating to Chicago to plant a church:

“I just had one of those moments like ‘Holy crap … what are we doing?’” -Mark Bergin. Read more.

Rick Warren on paying $1500 for counseling early in his marriage:

“MasterCard saved my marriage!” -Rick Warren.

Zondervan’s decision to stop publication of a book deemed racist by Asian-Americans:

“The growing churches…