Last year Rob Bell made waves with his book Love Wins which he describes as “a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who has ever lived.” The waves became a tsunami when John Piper tweeted “Farewell, Rob Bell” and dismissed him as a heretic. Agree or disagree with his point of view, Bell knows how to stir conversation. And there is one thing about Love Wins we cannot dismiss- how we think about the future shapes how we live in the present.

I’ve had the benefit of interviewing Bell a number of times and have always found him thoughtful, gracious, and genuine in his pursuit of Christ. He was kind enough to talk to me once again–this time about his decision to leave his…

Newsflash…Young adults are leaving the church. Ok, it’s not really news to anyone familiar with church attendance trends. For generations we have seen young people raised within the church depart during their later teens and twenties. But most returned once they married and had children. It’s sometimes called the “driver’s license to marriage license hiatus.”

What is new is the mountain of recent research by respected groups like Barna, Lifeway, and Pew indicating young people who leave are no longer returning. The hiatus has become an exodus. Why? David Kinnaman at Barna outlines six reasons in his research. And others have pointed out that young people are waiting much longer to get married than in the past, thereby delaying the felt-need to return to church. (Al…

A few years ago I was walking through Woodfield Mall, the largest one in Illinois, just before Christmas. I was disappointed to see that Santa’s grotto, where children waited in line for a brief one-on-one consultation with Mr. Claus, had been transformed into an enormous promotional display for the upcoming movie, Happy Feet.

Apparently the mall’s managers were not bothered that Santa was difficult to see among the huge images of computer generated penguins, and clearly nobody was disturbed by the geographic discrepancy–penguins only live at the South Pole and Santa resides at the North Pole. Sadder to me was the absence of the enormous Christmas tree that had stood at the center of the mall since my childhood. It appeared that Santa had sold his season,…

I hate shopping for clothes. I hate taking my kids shopping for clothes. And as my oldest daughter gets closer to becoming a “tween” I hate it even more (which is why I’m thankful that my wife takes the lead on such tasks). What amazes me are the, ahem, mature fashions now seen as acceptable for young girls. Yes, I’m one of those parents who would prefer childhood last more than the five minutes our culture seems to allow.

I’m not the only one. There has been a growing movement, by both religious and non-religious groups, to champion the value of modesty. Some push modesty as a means of protecting their children from the dangers of a sexually super-charged culture. Others hope to aid their daughters in developing…

Last week I was visiting my friends at Newsong in Irvine, California. Dave Gibbons had invited me to speak with the community about some of the ideas in my book, With. This video is a few minutes from my message about the importance of how we see the world. Drawing from the story of Mother Teresa, I unpack why the challenges facing the church in the West are the result of neither resources nor motivation, but rather vision. And by “vision” I don’t mean the kind of organizational BHAGs that seem to occupy many ministry leaders’ thoughts these days. Instead I mean the ability to see with eyes of faith; the kind of sight granted to those minds the Holy Spirit has illuminated to see the world differently.…

A pair of architects in Belgium have created an unusual structure–a see-through church.  It’s not a functional building, but rather a piece of public art that stands ten meters high. The design consists of 100 stacked layers and 2000 columns of steel plates. From some angles it looks like a traditional church with a steeple. But change your location and the solid walls become so thin they disappear in the sunlight.

Take a look at more photos here.

The architects said they were motivated by the growing number of abandoned churches in Belgium, and the declining role of religion in the highly secularized country. They have titled their structure “Reading Between the Lines” because it “extends this idea of transparency onto the church and equally onto the…

Megachurches are predominantly white, suburban, conservative congregations led by baby-boomer pastors. That is what an infographic about floating around the web lately has revealed. It’s based on research compiled by Forbes, The Christian Post, and Leadership Network.

For the most part the stats look very positive for mega and gigachurches (yes, that is a term now being used widely). These massive congregations, unlike many other churches, are still growing. They’re expanding staff, seeing increasing budgets, and have an optimistic outlook.

But buried in the positive stats about megachurches may be signs of challenges ahead. Could a bubble be forming that when it finally bursts will require the mega-model to be reengineered? Are we seeing the maturation of the megachurch movement into a sustainable and long-term model for…

Read part 1.

What I find most interesting about Tony Jones’ thesis is the way it can explain far more than just the Emerging Church Movement. I think contemporary youth ministry may also help us understand the rise of the megachurch movement in the late 1970s and 80s (and probably other movements as well). The number of megachurches exploded in that time from just 10 in 1970 to over 500 by 1990…most started by baby-boomers with youth ministry backgrounds.

Remember that the whole notion of a youth culture really emerged after World War II. Television, rock ‘n roll, and the economic boom after the war resulted in a generation of young people with disposable income and the opportunity to express themselves in ways foreign to their Depression-generation parents.…

Did the modern youth ministry movement create the Emerging Church? That’s the question Tony Jones addresses in a recent blog post. While presenting a paper at an academic conference, Jones fielded questions from professors of youth ministry primarily from evangelical colleges and seminaries.

Jones said to them, “You all have strong feelings about the emerging church movement, most of them negative.  Well, you are directly responsible for the emerging church movement.”

He went on to describe how contemporary youth ministry shuns the “accoutrements of power (vestments, titles, special roles and rites). Instead, youth are encouraged to engage all of the practices of the community equally.” In other words, the rejection of structural authority and the focus on a flat structure of relational authority which has marked the…