This spring a certain Christian layperson has been criticized for not exiting his local church when he disagreed with something his pastor preached.

The experts on the subject have been, as far as I can tell, media personnel who never go to church, do not know what sermons are for, and have not experienced lively congregational participation; people who value fidelity very little and church hopping and sermon shopping very highly; those who have political stakes in their judgment; and people who pay no attention to the contexts of messages.

via The Christian Century.

In terms of spending, the more control the board exerts, the less a ministry can respond immediately to current needs. The more freedom ministries have, the harder it is for the board to monitor exactly what’s going on. Each church has to find the middle ground.

via Who Spends the Church’s Money? | Free Article Funds Budget Pay Income Expense.

It is not that the church’s theological absolutes are no longer trusted, but that the old modes in which those absolutes have been articulated are increasingly suspect and dysfunctional. That is because our old modes are increasingly regarded as patriarchal, hieararchic, authoritarian, and monologic.

Walter Brueggeman asks how this affects our way of preaching in “Preaching as Reimagination.”

Arlin Rothauge’s “Sizing Up a Congregation” (pdf) is a great overview of the dynamics found in different sized churches.

It addresses the Family Church (0-50), The Pastoral Church (50-150), The Program Church (150-350), and The Corporation Church (350-500+). From the perspective of the pastor, the issues are different in each of those. The smallest one calls the pastor to be innovative and finding things to do, but at the same time be available. The Family church is all about being reactive, there is not a lot of room for innovation, the pastor often seems to have favorites (those that have initiative to be in contact). When we move into the program church, the root of complaints towards the pastor is that he is not available for all groups, and does not participate in all programs. The issues in the largest church group are seldom about the pastor, more about lack of space for various tasks (lets build something together).

Rothauge does not address what we might call mega churches or multisite variations.

The United Methodist Church or, more specifically, its U.S. component, often continues to be entangled in U.S. political and economic ideologies and desires. … we must clearly grasp that the so-called “American Way of Life” requires critique. Capitalism and consumerism are not practices taken straight from the gospel.

Elaine A Robinson has an interesting article about the need to restructure UMC in an Age of Empire (PDF). Asking questions about the unbalanced relationship between north and south.

PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) is one of the most comprehensive and well respected divorce-prevention/marriage enhancing programs in the world. PREP is a skills and principles-building curriculum designed to help partners say what they need to say, get to the heart of problems, and increase their connection with each other.

On their website are various resources about marriage, cohabitation, and divorces. It has a bend towards traditional understanding of the family, but valuable nonetheless.

Prep, Inc – Articles. – Of special interest is Marriage in the 90s: A Nationwide Random Phone Survey (PDF).

ELCA’s understanding of Global Mission in the 21st Century is explained in the paper “Global Mission in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision of Evangelical Faithfulness in God’s Mission.”

The focus on ELCA’s Global Mission is the word accompaniment that is explained here.

While on the phone, I asked her what she thought of those groups. Her answer might surprise you: “Everyone knows,” she said, “That short term missions benefit the people who come, not the people here.”

Is that true? If so, then thousands of people are raising millions of dollars each year to do something not for others, but for themselves. Are we fooling ourselves by pretending these trips help people when they are really just an excuse to see a foreign country? If our good works are not doing good, why do them?

via catapult magazine The cost of short-term missions. The original article is to be found on pdf at www.ajshonduras.org/joannsarticle.pdf.

In the International Bulletin of Missionary Research one can find all kinds of facts and figures about global Christianity.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

Hans Kung focuses in his studies on Paradigm Shifts in Christianity. Here is a pdf that showw how Kung sees the historical process of Christianity through the ages.

Paradigm Shifts in Christianity (PDF)