Sturtz Stuff

Church Bulletins that Don't Suck Church Central has an article about getting the most out of your church bulletins . Is your church bulletin just another chance to spread the word about upcoming events? Does it communicate something about your church? Does it relate to the theme of the service? The article is the tip of the church bulletin iceberg. The simple fact is the weekly bulletin is the one thing almost everybody who comes to your church will see and have an opportunity to take home. Are you using that to full effect? Does your bulletin reinforce your church’s brand? If a random stranger found a stray bulletin would they think about visiting your church? A while back Ryan Hartsock sent us some samples of church bulletin designs and talked about trying to do more with them. The church bulletin is no easy design task. They have to serve a practical purpose (guiding people through the service), notify and inform, and invite and welcome. But they can also do more. What does...

Len is Senior Leadership Editor at Abingdon Press, the main imprint of the United Methodist Publishing House. He wrote the following thoughts . . . .Different communication systems create different epistemologies, or ways of knowing God and our world. They are quite powerful and largely unseen by many. In fact, a current change in communication systems may be changing what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Keep reading by clicking here .

The New Frontier We all know the problems of inner city residents. Poverty. Hunger. Discrimination. Crime. Drugs. Unemployment. Gangs. Illiteracy. Despair. Hopelessness. We know the common solutions. Welfare. Food stamps. More police patrols. Federal aid to dependent children. We also know that these solutions are just stop-gaps, doing nothing to address the one thing all people need most-God. We recognize their need for God and long to do something about it. Sometimes we’ve expected them to come to our churches, to act like we do, to sing the songs we sing, to pray the same prayers, to smile the same smiles, to be on time, and to listen to our twenty-minute sermons. As a result, most evangelical churches in America, black or white, speak English, are middle-class, and have middle-class aspirations. But consider these facts: Los Angeles is the second largest Mexican, Armenian, Korean, Filipino, Salvadorian, and Guatemalan city in the world. San Francisco is the most culturally dive...

The uploaded video did not turn out so well. You can watch the video here as well.

Check it out at: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2011/11/22/the-mainstreaming-of-polyamory/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-mainstreaming-of-polyamory

But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run. Keep reading by using the link: http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-hardest-problem-in-science/40845

By Matthew Barrett – How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens. By Michael Williams. Zondervan, 2012. How would the Bible read differently if we read each book in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Michael Williams argues that Christ is the central focus of each biblical book and every theme of the Bible ultimately finds its fulfillment in the person and work of Christ. Justin Taylor commends the book saying, “Few books do a better job of giving us an overview of Genesis to Revelation in such a compact way

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (BP)--"Christians divorce at roughly the same rate as the world!" It's one of the most quoted stats by Christian leaders today. And it's perhaps one of the most inaccurate. Read more by clicking on the link: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=34656

Recently I have had a few conversations that all seem to deal with Christians struggling to deal with forgiveness and acceptance.   C.S. Lewis put it this way: “We find that the work of forgiveness has to be done over and over again. We, forgive, we mortify our resentment; a week later some chain of thought carries us back to the original offense and we discover the old resentment blazing away if nothing had been done about it at all. We need to forgive our brother seventy times seven not only for 490 offenses but for one offense.” I have a sense that many Christians feel this way. We say “I forgive you” only to have the resentment and bitterness return from time to time. Some may need to forgive someone and then never be in the same room with that person every again. The difficultly seems to arise in how much or how often do I forgive someone especially if they are continuing in some particularly blatant sin. Should I cut off my relationship with them? Should I confront them? Sho...

I enjoied this post from Brian Jones: Every time we turn around there’s a new book/pastor/church/sermon/bible study/seminar or conference telling us that we are wholly inadequate in our commitment to Christ. The formula is always the same: Talk about how Jesus was this insanely committed guy who lived his life on the brink of starvation and death to help others. Highlight how we American Christians are fat, lazy, shallowly committed and innately self-centered. Heighten awareness by finding stories about Christians (usually in third world or persecuted countries) that are not fat, lazy and shallowly committed and who live insanely committed lives on 3 cents a day and risk death to help others. Round out your thoughts by implying that “If you were really committed to Christ you would…” __________ (give more money), ___________ (serve more), __________ (live more radically), _____________ (believe more fervently), and ___________ (visit dangerous places) just like Jesus and the...