If renewal comes from the margins, then we need to listen carefully to those ‘reflective Christians’ who doubt and question what the majority takes for granted. So says Brian McLaren: Good Marginal Thinking | LeadershipJournal.net

Technorati Tags: renewal, margins, BrianMcLaren

Why Many Young Adults Quit | LeadershipJournal.net

Quote from the article:

Lifeway‘s Ed Stetzer blames the losses on sorry youth ministry: “Too
many youth groups are holding tanks with pizza,” Stetzer said. “There’s
no life transformation taking place. People are looking for a faith
that can change them and be part of changing the world.”

Technorati Tags: youngadults, churchleaving, Lifeway, EdStetzer

Is the Church bland or spicy? Mark Labberton on how to make church and Gospel spicy (as it should be): The Lima Bean Gospel | Mark Labberton | The Christian Vision Project

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Some introductory thoughts on this topic: The Zoloft Dispensation – LeadershipJournal.net

Technorati Tags: mwntalhealth, medication, pastoralcare, ministry, LeadershipJournal, ElliottAnderson

Yesterday morning’s Covenant Service contained an unexpected joy: one little girl took Holy Communion for the first time ever. She and her mother didn’t know the Methodist policy. As I came to people kneeling at the rail, I wasn’t sure whether she was holding out her hands for the bread or not. I asked her, ‘Would you like communion?’ She nodded. I gave her some bread. As with other young children, I dispensed with the words, ‘The Body of Christ keep you in eternal life’ (much as I love them). Instead, I said, ‘Eat this to remember how much Jesus loves you.’

Only afterwards, over coffee, did we discover it was her first time. She had the kind of radiant smile that every disciple should naturally display from time. Simple explanation – mostly by my wife – followed.

It wasn’t the only reason to smile at the sacrament, either. Rebekah, our four-year-old, announced in her usual loud voice that the wine ‘tastes like Cola’. If only it did. Not that I’m a big Coke fan, I just can’t believe how disgusting most communion wine is. Today I heard about an Anglican church in the south of France that serves claret. (Wrong region of France, I know, but I feel like driving there, even though I’m currently on tablets that are incompatible with alcohol.) I don’t see why communion has to be tasteless or foul on the tongue. Is that an unworthy thing to say? I see Holy Communion as an attractive thing, not an act of spiritual misery.

Then Mark, our three-year-old, told the wider congregation when everyone at the front had finished. No space for that quiet reflection on them knees before the I blessed them and they returned to their seat. Mark let everybody know time was up, and they should be off. Which is theologically apt, don’t you think? Communion services end not simply with a blessing but a call to mission – words such as ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.’

Afterwards, Rebekah and Mark assisted the communion stewards in washing up. Well, no, they didn’t wash up, they downed the contents of unused wine glasses, enjoying more ‘Cola’. I’ve never understood those Christians who want to limit the amount of communion they have. I’ve seen that attitude in a few different ways. I have met some Christians who have one swig of the wine, and if any remains the glass, they don’t drink it. Others won’t take the sacrament more than once in the same day – oh, the sin I committed in my first circuit when I scheduled morning and evening communions on the same Sunday one month. Apparently you need to sleep between sacraments. Perhaps a siesta would suffice. Or there are those who think that weekly communion would make it less special. While I hold a pretty low church view of the sacraments, I have to say I can’t understand those who don’t want more Jesus. We can be greedy for more of him, can’t we?

Technorati Tags: holycommunion, children, sacraments, covenantservice