The Houston Chronicle published a piece outlining the multi-site, First Methodist Church in Houston. One location is in the suburbs, whereas the other location is downtown Houston. The United Methodist Reporter outlines some of the differences between the communities: “It will be extremely communal,” Hagans said of the smaller sessions. “It will be more about relationships…
|| Written by Paul D. Numrich, Methodist Theological School in Ohio and Trinity Lutheran Seminary || What happens when a Catholic church provides overflow parking to a Hindu temple? Is it primarily an exchange of resources? Or is something more going on? In our book on immigrant congregations, Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement, Fred Kniss and I…
“Calling ISIS ‘Muslim’ is like going to KFC, sitting down to eat a bucket of chicken, and calling yourself a ‘vegetarian’.” This protest against the way Islam is portrayed in Western media was but one of the insights I gained while conducting congregational studies in a church and a mosque that were sharing a common…
A variation of the walking tour is a great way to explore a congregation’s context: walking with cameras. These days most people have access to photographic equipment in the form of a mobile phone, digital camera, or disposable camera. Whatever technology one employs, one should think of cameras as tools for collecting information and photographs as a…
The Christian Century posted an article in 2015 proposing thinking about a congregation’s building as an asset. From the article: What we’ve discovered—and it has been a learning curve for us, as well as for the congregations we’ve served—is that buildings and grounds can be leveraged to support congregational mission and extend the presence of…