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‘Let no one who is not eager for truth and peace enter here’ (Plato)

Articles on this site express varying points of view, to encourage mature thinking on serious issues. The assumption is that you will want to study a controversial topic from various angles before you arrive at a conclusion, rather than simply believe what someone told you when you were impressionable! (So some stuff here is ‘hot’. Proceed at your own risk!). See the Statement of Faith for John Mark Ministries' theological stance.

The Catholic Church and Technology: The Case of the Confession App

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ May 27, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

*Sightings* 5/26/2011 — Ken Chitwood * * The release of a new application for Apple Products such as the iPhone, ¢â‚¬Å“Confession: A Roman Catholic App, ¢â‚¬ made bemused headlines across the United States, including Maureen Dowd ¢â‚¬â„¢s ¢â‚¬Å“Give us This Day our Daily App, ¢â‚¬ and Nicole Brewer ¢â‚¬â„¢s ¢â‚¬Å“Forgive Me iPhone, For I Have Sinned. ¢â‚¬ With their clever […]

Has entertainment replaced Scripture as the center of our worship?

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ May 27, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

A Leadership Journal interview with Chuck Swindoll Monday, May 2, 2011 A survey in 2009 asked pastors to identify the most influential living preacher. Chuck Swindoll came in second only to Billy Graham. How does one use that kind of cachet? Apparently to call the church back from its captivity to entertainment. Dr. Charles R. Swindoll […]

Southern Baptists – Good News!

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ May 17, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Sightings 5/16/2011 — Martin E. Marty We have to wear virtual sunglasses when we do our too-rare *Sightings* of positive religion news in public media, so bright are these exceptions to the down and depressing accounts. Since most religious people and those who benefit from their doings see and experience more bright sides than down […]

Modernity and Religion

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ April 13, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

*Sightings* 4/11/2011 *Modernity and Religion* — Martin E. Marty Beyond religion-in-the-news stories about Japan, Libya, Washington, and other crisis points, ¢â‚¬Å“religion in public life ¢â‚¬ continues to be a topic which deserves notice. This week in a conversation two sociologists who are turning attention to religious phenomena asked a provocative question: ¢â‚¬Å“What would *you* make the […]

Abusive Churches

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 25, 2011 ⋅ One comment

Twelve Steps to healing an abusive Church NEIL ORMEROD MARCH 22, 2011 To all intents and purposes it looked like an email requesting supervision for a research proposal. Nothing unusual in that. I get a steady trickle of these. There was an attached letter which I opened, and immediately knew much more was at stake. The […]

Church politics

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 21, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Repenting of a Political Mindset By Chaplain Mike NOTE: Either I have communicated poorly or my use of the word ¢â‚¬Å“political ¢â‚¬ has thrown some of you off in terms of the focus of this post. I am using the words ¢â‚¬Å“politics ¢â‚¬ and ¢â‚¬Å“political ¢â‚¬ in their more informal, secondary sense in what follows. Dictionary.com includes the […]

‘God rock’

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 17, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

God rock soars on an appetite for devotion The Hillsong Church band is topping the charts. John Elder reports on its heavenly success. Date: 06/03/2011 Sunday Age IF ROCK’N’ROLL is the devil’s music, how did an album by Hillsong Church’s house band manage to get to the top of Australian iTunes charts? The Hillsong album, Aftermath, […]

The Church of Geese (Soren Kierkegaard)

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 15, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Kierkegaard, S ƒ ¸ren. Journals. Edited by Alexander Dru. Translated by Alexander Dru. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959. 252-53 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Domestic Goose A Moral Tale ¢â‚¬Å“Try to imagine for a moment that geese could talk ¢â‚¬”that they had so arranged things that they too had their divine worship and their church-going. ¢â‚¬Å“Every Sunday they would meet together […]

Church Offerings

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 8, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

I’ve recently written a paper for our congregation on “Thinking about Church Offerings”. I figure that some of the ideas in it might be helpful to other churches, so I’ve pasted it below. I’d welcome any feedback or suggestions for other ideas that have helped your people think responsibly about their giving. Peace and hope, […]

There’s an Elephant in the Room: Pastoral Ministry

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 3, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

by Robert Griffith ¢â‚¬Å“I had no idea just how irrelevant the church has become ¢â‚¬ ¦ ¢â‚¬ Those words rang in my ears long after the phone call ended. I had been talking to a Bible College buddy of mine who had recently resigned from Pastoral Ministry after nearly 20 years. I wish I could say his […]

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