Content about Person Career

In a Sept. 28 article published by the Barna Group, “Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church,” Barna, a nationally respected non-profit research organization dedicated to spiritual development, outlines six reasons why young people stay away from churches:

• Churches seem overprotective: While many churches try to convince members to reject or avoid “worldly” influences, today’s young people are more connected to culture, media and concerns of the world than ever.

 DURBAN, South Africa -- Climate change may be of grave concern to many people, but that would have been hard to tell by the sparse size of the crowd that attended a faith-based rally Sunday in King's Park Stadium in Durban, South Africa.

"It was disappointing really," says Peter VanderMeulen, director of the Christian Reformed Church Office of Social Justice, who attended the rally.

My parents are really religious. My pastor said being gay was immoral. I heard that God hates fags. My church took collections to stop marriage equality. They told me about Sodom and Gomorrah. They quoted Leviticus. They told me I was evil. They told me I was a sinner. They told me I couldn’t love God. They told me I could change.

Every day, I enjoy conversations with students who fit into the category of SBNR - "spiritual but not religious."

Churches and other faith-based organizations around the United States are gearing up to present a message of hope, faith, tolerance and unity as the nation observes the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

* * *

Old age is not for sissies. The actor Bette Davis said that, I think. Neither is it for show-offs. I can testify to that.

I have a Mazda Miata, stick-shift, of course. I've bragged about it in these notes at least once before, called it my second middle-age crisis. My wife CP and I have a good friend, a handsome and talented young woman in her very early fifties, younger than our children. I rather proudly took her for a top-down spin in the Miata not long ago. 

CHICAGO (ELCA) – What does it means to "live Lutheran" today? Members and congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are invited to answer that question and compete for ministry grants and cash prizes in the 2011 ELCA Video Contest.

"Allergy Blues" (Sung to the tune of "Summertime" from "Porgy & Bess")

Texas spring, and the livin' is sneezy;
Trees are buddin' and the pollen is high.
My eyes itch, and my sinuses quiver.
So, hush, all you sneezes; just let me die.

This chorus of "Allergy Blues" is dedicated to all the hay fever and allergy sufferers in the TPC readership. Today in big D the sky is gray with clouds and the smog is heavy with pollen, God help us!

***

One of the most treasured books in my library is a 100-page tome titled the Lessons of History, written in 1968 by Will and Ariel Durant. I have read and reread it and referenced it in many sermons, columns and essays. It is a profound book that should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the great lessons of history by the century rather than by the year. History really makes more sense that way.

After his previous article “The Wrong Inequality” was criticized for its snobbery and elitism, it now appears that David Brooks has had his poor little feelings hurt according to his latest column, "The Inequality Map".

Under the leadership of environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, a United Methodist layman, thousands of concerned demonstrators succeeded in delaying the Obama Administration's approval of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline.

The pipeline is slated to cross thousands of acres of vulnerable U.S. land from its origin in the Canadian tar sands to refineries along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.