How does a congregation make time and space for the disabilities and differences of those who constitute it? How does it claim those differences as vital to its forms of knowing and loving God rather than disruptive to its unity? Such questions animate my encounter with Holy Family Episcopal Church[1], a parish in which a…
The National Catholic Reporter published a five-part series on San Francisco’s Most Holy Redeemer Church, focusing on its open and inclusive relationship with the community. Up to eighty percent of its population is LGBT. Most Holy Redeemer draws broadly from across the San Francisco area, and because it is well known for its accepting attitude,…
Is your congregation attempting to reach out to “young families?” Jan Edmiston works at the Presbytery of Chicago and has a personal blog at at achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.org. Below is part of a 2015 post on the topic: Almost every church I’ve ever known has wanted to Attract Young Families. The reasoning behind this includes the following: If we don’t…
More and more congregations within the United States are declining, and with that decline come church closures. In my dissertation research, I examined two small congregations. Fellowship United Methodist Church (which is a pseudonym, along with all other names used in this post) is a small congregation in a Midwestern city. As of 2010, there…
Images are everywhere and everyone—from children to professionals schooled in digital media production—is making them. Digital cameras are commonplace, standard equipment in cell phones. These devices record countless photographs and videos, which are disseminated across media sharing platforms such as Flickr, Picasa, Instagram, and YouTube. Chances are more people carried a camera (in the form…