What Churchgoers Missed Most About In-Person Services

It was nearly impossible for congregations to meet together for Easter last year. Now, 12 months later, pastors are continuing to adapt to digital and hybrid ministry.

As church leaders reflect on how their ministry has been challenged and shaped in the past year, it’s worth taking note what churchgoers said they missed most about in-person worship experiences in the midst of social distancing.

The Majority of U.S. Pastors Plans to Provide Digital and In-Person Easter Services this Year

Last year, though a few pastors indicated that they and their congregation were going to meet outdoors (10%) or as usual (2%), over half (58%) planned and executed their first ever purely Digital Easter. Read More

5 Essentials to Leading and Motivating Volunteers

Have your volunteers returned?

As more of your congregation return to church, your need for quality and committed volunteers increases.

However, that might produce a unique kind of tension.

It’s good that people are coming back, and new people are coming, but my hunch is that some of your best volunteers haven’t returned yet.

Tension can increase at the thought of people returning to a sub-standard worship and ministry experience if you don’t have your full volunteer teams back.

You feel the pressure.

However, don’t pass that pressure on to your volunteers.

Guilt is not a good motivator; instead, invite them back to a big vision.

If a volunteer isn’t back yet because of heightened health risks, go slow and give them time. Pray for their health and encourage them. Read More

Pastor, You Have One Job

Ministry is, first and foremost, about being a caretaker of a message.

Designer Frank Chimero has a recommendation for artists: Create “text playlists,” akin to Spotify song lineups but for favorite snippets of writing—poems you want to revisit, bits of advice or wisdom you need to be regularly reminded of, stories you know will kickstart your creativity on days when you need inspiration, and so on. “It’s almost a pep talk in text form,” Chimero explains. “I visit it when I’m down, when I’m lazy, when I’m feeling the inertia take over.” This idea isn’t original to Chimero—older generations would have called their text playlists “commonplace books”—but that makes it all the more worth embracing. Revisiting memorable texts is a way of ensuring they’ll be formative in our lives. It’s a practice that allows them to do their work of shaping our patterns of thought and action.

Recently I’ve begun compiling a text playlist for pastoral ministry. I was ordained last September, and now, in addition to teaching at a theological seminary, I work part-time at my local parish church. As I prepare sermons, visit parishioners in the hospital, lead Bible studies, and administer Communion, I find myself returning to some basic questions: What is the main thing I’m called to do? What is pastoral care, really? What does it mean to be a minister of the Good News?

In the months leading up to my ordination, as I prayed and pondered what I was about to embark on, I started collecting quotations that seemed to articulate with unique and striking clarity the answer to these questions. Read More

Sometimes, To Hear the Voice of God, We Should Stop Singing

Our worship actions can drown out the distinct voice of God that is often only discernible in the silence. In the midst of our self-generated noise, we can miss healing, comforting, and encouraging words of hope such as “I am with you,” “Well done,” “You are forgiven,” and “I am weeping with you.” Scripture is certainly not silent on silence: “That’s enough! Now know that I am God!” (Ps 46:10). “Don’t be quick with your mouth or say anything hastily before God, because God is in heaven, but you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few” (Eccl 5:2). There’s “a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking” (Ecclesiastes 3:7).

Gary Furr and Milburn Price wrote, “In the drama of the Christian life, worship may be thought of as the script through which the Author of us all calls forth and responds to the deepest and most important longings in us.” Until we stop to listen, how will we hear that call? Read More

Leading in Prayer

Richard Bewes once gave me this letter that he would have used at All Souls for people whom he had asked to lead in prayer. It’s vintage Richard and very helpful…….

MEMO FROM RICHARD BEWES

LEADING THE PRAYERS IN THE SUNDAY SERVICE

Your help will be so much appreciated in this vital part of our Sunday Service. It would be good if you could kindly take time – however experiences you are at this – to read through these guidelines, as you prepare to take on this piece of ministry. The more carefully the prayers are prepared, the greater will be the sense of gratitude, from many hundreds of people, that we are all caught up together in a wonderful spirit of joint intercession. Thank you very much! Read More

All Hallows Evening Prayer for Wednesday Evening (March 31, 2021) Is Now Online

All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic meal in which we not only commemorate his death and suffering for the sins of the world upon the cross but in which we also encounter the living, risen Lord. We are united to Jesus and each other by the Holy Spirit. Wherever we gather, Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit is with us. His presence is a real presence, not an imagined one.

The dismissal song is Omer Westendorf’s communion hymn, “Gift of Finest Wheat. The hymn’s beautiful setting BICENTENNIAL was composed by Robert E. Kreutz. Originally published in 1977, “Gift of Finest Wheat” now appears in a number of Anglican, Catholic, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, and Presbyterian hymnals. John Ferguson’s arrangement of the hymn for SATB voices, assembly, and organ is available from GIA Publications.

The Scripture reading for this Wednesday evening is 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 The Institution of the Lord’s Supper.

The homily is titled “On the Night That He Was Betrayed.”

The link to this Wednesday evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2021/03/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for_31.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.

If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.

Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/

May this service be a blessing to you.

4 Trends Shaping Church Planting and Growth Through 2050

There are a few reasons why church planting networks should be thinking about the year 2050. But among the most important is that the population in North America—the United States in particular—is diversifying rapidly. Very soon, for the first time since the country’s founding, whites will comprise less than half of the total U.S. population. The nation’s leading demographer from the Brookings Institute, William Frey, says this could happen as soon as 2045.

While demographics aren’t destiny, the large shifts—especially the new complex dynamics of urban and suburban contexts—and the increasing diversity of local neighborhoods and communities has a huge implication for how church planting is being conceptualized for a new generation.

Frey’s book, Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America, provides watershed insight and implications for organizations concerned with how they can embrace and adjust to this oncoming reality,

I am convinced that the United States is in the midst of a pivotal period ushering in extraordinary shifts in the nation’s racial demographic makeup. If planned for properly, these demographic changes will allow the country to face the future with growth and vitality as it reinvents the classic American melting pot for a new era.

The correlation of this for church planting groups is that if they do not plan properly as suggested by Frey, there will be diminishing effectiveness in their church planting efforts. Read More

How To Start A Church – With or Without Money

Keeping track of people and money are two primary tasks for church administrators, and because most church plants run on a shoestring budget, every dollar matters. Sometimes (if we are honest) the dollars seem to matter more than the people. When it comes to how to start a church, two things are certain, though: (1) God can provide, and (2) people matter more than money.

People have worried about money ever since the invention of money—church planters (and church administrators) are no exception! In the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life George Bailey, distraught over his financial situation, is ready to take his life. Clarence the angel is sent to the rescue. Clarence explains, “We don’t use money in heaven.” Bailey answers, “Well, it comes in pretty handy around here, Bub.” It turns out both Clarence and George were right! Read More

Image Credit: churchleaders.com

From the Empty Tomb to Today’s Abuse: Believe Women

I was an RZIM apologist. Trusting female sources is key to Christian witness.

The central facts of the Christian faith were all primarily witnessed by women.

Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,” as the Apostles’ Creed says, and the Incarnation was witnessed first and foremost by Mary, his mother. Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” The Atonement was witnessed in all four Gospels primarily by Jesus’ female followers. Then, “on the third day he rose again.” The resurrection of Christ was also witnessed in all four Gospels by women.

If we don’t believe women, then we have to dismiss the eyewitnesses to the Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection. If we won’t listen, we don’t have access to the evidence for the central truths of the Christian faith.

“Believe women” has become the contested slogan of the Me Too movement. I know what happens if we don’t. In the past few months I have been living in the eye of a storm of trauma, dismay, and profound grief as new allegations of abuse have battered the apologetics organization I previously served with, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Revelations of Ravi Zacharias’s abuse of multiple women are horrendous, and the catastrophic fallout of his wretched duplicity has impacted so many.

But back in 2017, when Lori Anne Thompson came forward with her testimony about sexual abuse at Ravi’s hands, she was not believed. I could rehearse in detail what happened internally, in the global organization, including how some women in the organization did raise serious questions about Ravi’s explanations and were misled, pressured, and persuaded to accept the official narrative. I have apologized unreservedly to Lori Anne and her husband, Brad, and I do so here again publicly.

Devastating consequences flowed from people not listening to the testimony of a woman—consequences I witnessed and endured firsthand, even as I have had to examine and confess my own complicity. It is against this backdrop that the phrase “believe women” has taken on a new potency for me.

As a follower of Jesus, it saddens me that the church seems no better than the world in this regard. Far too often, women are not believed. Renowned psychologist and abuse expert Diane Langberg points out that “across studies the rates of false accusations run between 3 and 9 percent.” Yet time and again, women who come forward with testimony are not believed.

How prescient and poignant then that at the heart of the Christian faith lies the historic testimony of women. The gospel of Jesus Christ requires us to believe the word of women. The Easter message itself—“Christ is risen!”—is the testimony of women. Read More

Is Christianity a White Man’s Religion?

The nagging sense that Christianity is the white man’s religion is an earnest question—and often an objection—voiced on the block, in the barbershop, and in scholarly debates. With our culture eager to be on the right side of history, this question is no longer exclusive to Black folks or other ethnic minorities.

White people, especially millennials and Gen Z, are reluctant to embrace a faith that even remotely feels like a tool for past or present oppression. Whether any of this language describes you—and even if it doesn’t—I’m glad you’re considering this important question. Done rigorously and honestly, this inquiry can lead you to firm faith. There are three general reasons that lead people to wonder if Christianity is the white man’s religion.... Read More

Generosity and the Brain

I believe my leadership calling is to bring insight about the incredible gift from God called the brain into conversations about Christian leadership. So, many of my blog posts reflect this bent from my current learning. Since we’re to honor God with our bodies (1 Cor. 6.20) and the brain is part of our body, we need to honor God with our brains. In this post I explain two significant processes in our brains that influence generosity: the sense of reward we personally experience when we give and the empathy we feel toward the recipient of our gifts.

I grew up in the church and I tithed even before I was a Christian. I go beyond a tithe because the bible says I’m supposed to be generous. We certainly must preach and teach about generosity, but we also must recognize how people make decisions. Emotions are a vital part of our decision making. In fact, neuroscientists are discovering that people whose emotional centers of their brains are damaged (called lesions) can’t make wise decisions. Often they lack discretion because they can’t emotionally connect that a decision could bring a bad outcome. So, it makes sense that we pastors have some sense of how the brain works.

I’d like to think that Christians give solely from obedience, not on the basis of a reward they will get. They don’t. People give partially because it makes them feel good and gives them a sense of satisfaction. I believe that in many cases, such giving is biblically justified because the bible often speaks about serving God for reward. In fact, when people give, it increases a neurotransmitter in their brains, dopamine, that makes them feel good. Read More

When the Bible Turns Into Instagram

Our daughter is in middle school, and recently she deleted the Bible app from her phone. I was glad.

She didn’t make this decision because she no longer wants to read the Bible. (In fact, she’s more engaged in Bible study now than before.) And she didn’t delete the app out of frustration with how poorly it works. (YouVersion’s capabilities get better all the time.)

She let the app go because, in her words, “The Bible app is like Instagram.” The social media component overtook the initial reason for having the app in the first place. The whole experience became about scrolling through the pictures her school friends would post, sometimes with Bible verses attached—some unrelated, some humorous, and some serious. The verse pictures and the constant commentary on each others’ posts got to the point when she felt God’s Word had morphed into just another means of self-expression and connection online.

I don’t know what to make of this development.

Our son is in high school, and his experience with the Bible app has been remarkably different. He maintained a streak of reading God’s Word every day for an entire year when he adopted reading plans and joined with his student pastor and a few teenagers who agreed to use the app’s functionalities to hold each other accountable.

Likewise, my own experience with the Bible app has been positive. I use it to survey different translations in English, and I dip into the Romanian translations as well, to see how some of them render a verse. It’s true that I don’t read the Bible primarily on the phone, but it’s handy to have God’s Word so accessible. Read More

Gallup: Fewer Than Half of Americans Belong to a Church

Coupled with the rise of religious nones, even people of faith are less likely to join a house of worship.

Ask Americans if they believe in God and most will say yes. But a growing number have lost faith in organized religion.

For the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque, according to a new report from Gallup.

Forty-seven percent of Americans now say they belong to a house of worship, down from 70 percent in the mid-1990s and 50 percent in 2019. The decline is part of a continued drop in membership over the past 20 years, according to Gallup data.

The polling giant has been measuring church membership since 1937 when nearly three-quarters of the population (73%) reported membership in a house of worship.

For much of that time, membership remained at about 70 percent but began to decline after 1999. By the late 2000s, membership had dropped to about 62 percent and has continued to fall.

Pollsters at Gallup looked at survey data from more than 6,000 Americans and compared data from 2018 to 2020 with two other time frames: 2008 to 2020 and 1998 to 2000.

The decline in membership coincides with the rise of the so-called “nones”—those who claim no religious affiliation. Gallup reports about one in five Americans (21%) is a none—making them as large a group as evangelicals or Catholics. Other polls put the number at closer to 30 percent. Read More

Also See
Gallup: Fewer than half of Americans belong to a church or other house of worship
‘Nones’ now as big as evangelicals, Catholics in the US
Report: Church Membership Among Catholics Declined Nearly 20% Since 2000
U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time
Religiosity Largely Unaffected by Events of 2020 in U.S.

If you are a pastor or other church leader, this news may prove better than a cup of coffee to wake you up this morning!

Biden Calls for Mask Mandates, CDC Director Fears 'Impending Doom' from COVID Surge

 

The warnings came amid a 10% rise in cases.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in an emotional plea Monday, said she feels a sense of "impeding doom" about another surge in COVID-19 cases as infections increased 10% and President Joe Biden called for a return of mask mandates.

"I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom," Walensky said at a White House briefing. "We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now, I'm scared.

Walensky has repeatedly warned that the country would face another, avoidable surge in COVID-19 cases if Americans didn't keep wearing masks, avoid travel, and continue social distancing until more of the population is vaccinated. Read More

Also See:

Covid-19: CDC head warns of 'impending doom' in US
CDC study finds Pfizer, Moderna vaccines are 90% effective after two doses in real-world conditions
‘I’m empty.’ Pandemic scientists are burning out—and don’t see an end in sight

According to the Lexington Herald Leader, Kentucky coronavirus deaths have passed 6000 but Kentuckians are not keeping their vaccination appointments. One report that I read stated that even one dose of the Moderna vaccine was 80% effective. Residents of Kentucky, like people elsewhere in the United States, just as there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, are getting a case of the "stupids." Now I am not suggesting that they are dull-witted--far from it. One can be a bright, intelligent person and suffer from the "stupids." It is that they listen to the wrong person at the wrong time. and they make a mistake in judgment, a mistake that involves them in what is basically self-destructive behavior. On several occasions in my own life I have come down with the "stupids" so I know what it is like. In retrospect you look back and say to yourself, "How could I have been so brainless? Where was my common sense?" Unfortunately we have a way of tripping ourselves up and falling flat on our faces. We make a bad judgment call. We do not always learn from the experience. Right now we need to be on guard against the "stupids" as well as the COVID-19 coronavirus. Bravado will not protect us from the virus or protect our loved ones. We do better to follow the CDC's advice--wear a face mask, social distance, wash hands, avoid crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, avoid unnecessary travel, get vaccinated. For churches, require face masks and social distancing, limit the size of gatherings, worship outdoors, and take other necessary precautions. 

A Word of Caution to Those Who Plan to Attend Easter Services in Person

Now is not the time to relax our vigilance.

I do not expect readers who are planning to attend an Easter service in person at their church or some other church will welcome this word of caution. Some readers may choose to ignore it. 

The reduction of restrictions in some parts of the country is not a sign that we are out of the woods. In several cases these restriction reductions are motivated by politics and not guided by public health considerations. This has been an ongoing problem in the United States and accounts for a significant number of unnecessary infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. So does the unwillingness of a segment of the US population to take the COVID-19 coronavirus with the seriousness that it deserves. It has been dismissed as a hoax or no serious than a case of the flu.

An out-of-town visitor is the first known individual who brought the Covid-19 coronavirus to my community. This visitor who tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus ignored his doctor’s advice to self-quarantine and visited a cousin who lived in the community. The visitor infected the cousin with whom he stayed and an unknown number of attendees of a church service that he attended.

Like many communities in the United States my community has been divided over the pandemic. While health experts warned that the virus was a serious threat to the health and safety of US communities, one group of residents chose to listen to a White House that downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic and dismissed the need for precautionary measures such as face masks and social distancing. This same group of residents ignored community leaders when they urged them to take the pandemic more seriously. The doctor who was the White House COVID-10 coordinator at that time has since then admitted that the US death toll from the virus could have been mitigated with earlier action. Most deaths could have been avoided. Politics were given priority over people’s lives.

On Friday CDC director Rochelle Wolensky expressed deep concern about the present trajectory of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Scientists have yet to determine whether individuals who have been vaccinated against the virus can become infected asymptomatically and whether they can transmit the virus to others. Scientists have found evidence that saliva may play a role in the transmission of the virus. They are studying the emergence of a “double mutant” variant of the virus in India. On Wednesday India reported a sharpest rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths this year. On Sunday Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor, warned that the US may be facing a new COVID-19 surge as the number of daily cases remain on an unacceptably high plateau.

There are limits to what those who have been fully vaccinated can do. They cannot resume their life exactly as they lived it before the pandemic. One of the things that they are advised against doing is attending medium-sized or large gatherings. The AARP has put together a list of what those are fully vaccinated can do and cannot do, according to the CDC and other health experts. As far as traveling is concerned, the CDC is advising Americans that the best way that they can protect themselves and others is to stay home.

Except for the Easter lilies, Easter is my favorite church festival of the year—a joyful celebration of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead. (I am allergic to Easter lily pollen as are many liturgical ministers, servers, and choristers.) It is a celebration to which I have always looked forward—the hymns, the anthems, the solemn procession with candles and incense, the baptisms, and the Holy Communion. But I see no point in allowing such an occasion to become an opportunity for the COVID-19 coronavirus to spread. It is a time to acknowledge with praise and thanksgiving our Lord’s rising from the dead and the promise of new life for ourselves that accompanies his resurrection. We do not honor our risen Lord when we permit our gatherings to spread suffering and death.

Our Lord not only reiterated God’s command to love him with every atom of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves but he also taught that we should love each other with the same kind of sacrificial love that he showed us and tied our love of God to our love of others, including those we see or who see themselves as our enemies. As Jesus reminded those who flocked to hear him, God desires mercy, not sacrifice. The kindness, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness that we show our fellow human beings matter far more to God than does our sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise.

The locator devices on our cellphones are showing growing activity in the US population, activity that exceeds the level of activity that the country needs to maintain to safeguard the population against the further transmission of the COVID-19 coronavirus and its variants. This has been attributed to spring fever, as well as to covid fatigue and covid denial. 

Spring fever, however, is often accompanied by impatience, restiveness, and a lack of good judgment and sense. It can lead to us making unwise decisions that may not only harm ourselves but also harm others. When we are still trying to find our way out of the woods. it is not something that we want to catch. It may result in others and ourselves catching something far worse.

Now is not the time to show how brave, courageous, fearless, or strong that we are. The COVID-19 coronavirus has no regard for how we see ourselves or others sees us. The virus is very single minded for a mindless submicroscopic infectious agent. Find a host and replicate. Find a host and replicate. Find a host and replicate. If it seriously damages or kills the host in the process of replicating is of no concern to the virus.

Now is the time to protect our loved ones, our church, our community, and ourselves. In the midst of a pandemic an excess of caution is a far better choice than the absence of caution.

Pastors, Churchgoers Tired but Hopeful for Easter 2021

Working through a time of grief. Exhausted from what they’ve been through. Excited about what’s to come.

As pastors prepare for Easter this year, they may have more insight on how Jesus’ followers felt leading up to the first Resurrection Sunday.

And much like those early gatherings of believers, Easter celebrations at church services may not be full of people but will probably be full of hope and optimism for the future.

Around 2 in 5 Christians (39%) say they plan to attend Easter services in person this year, according to Pew Research. That’s significantly lower than the 62% who say they normally attend such services. Read More

Judge Lifts Worship Restrictions on DC Churches in Time for Holy Week Services

Churches in Washington, D.C. can hold in-person services without being limited to 25% capacity or 250 people after a federal judge lifted the city's coronavirus restrictions on houses of worship.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “approach to regulating houses of worship,” which allowed churches to host only up to 250 people or 25% of the building’s maximum capacity, whichever was less, “reflects a lack of adequate consideration for constitutional rights,” Judge Trevor N. McFadden ruled late last week.

McFadden’s ruling raises the capacity limit in churches to 40%, and churches must adhere to social distancing guidelines. Read More

The Best Way Forward for Pro-Lifers: Legislation, Protest, or a Culture of Life?

My favorite childhood movie, The Great Escape (1963), portrays an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp. The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, calling them Tom, Dick, and Harry: when guards discover Tom, the tunnel furthest along, the prisoners intensify their alternative efforts.

From the pro-life perspective, pro-life Americans have been in a prison camp ever since 1973, when a Supreme Court majority overrode state laws and legalized abortion throughout the United States. Since then, the Court has killed attempts by state legislatures to tear down the prison walls and fences. Once in a while, the Court has allowed removal of a watchtower. Read More

11 Ways to Maximize Your Youth Group Lessons

Do your youth group lessons often seem longer than teenagers’ attention spans? If you’re like most youth leaders, the list of valuable messages you want to impart to kids keeps growing longer, while their interest keeps shrinking. Whether you’re meeting in-person or online, you have many opportunities to make a big impact on young people’s faith and lives. To help, we’ve collected 11 must-have tips from experts in the youth ministry field. Read More

Image Credit: Church Leaders

What People Learn about You as a Leader without You Saying a Word

As a leader, people are always anxious to figure out who you really are.

It’s understandable. A leader’s primary commodity is trust. People follow leaders they trust. Violate that trust, and people stop following you.

Many leaders talk a good game. And that’s understandable.

Yet habits and actions reveal more about any leader than words. And that’s what people study. As the old saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.” And that’s exceptionally true in leadership.

So what actions are people looking at? What are they really studying to see whether you are a good leader to follow?

In my experience, there are at least 5 things that reveal who you really are as a leader. It’s also easy to overlook these 5 things, or to convince yourself that what you say will compensate for what you do if what you do falls short.

Yet nothing a leader says eventually outweighs what a leader does. Your actions—not your words—create your leadership and your legacy. Read More

All Hallows Evening Prayer for Sunday Evening (March 28, 2021) Is Now Online

 

All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week. In Anglican churches Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Passion is traditionally read on Palm Sunday. The reading for this Sunday evening, however, is a passage from John’s account of our Lord’s Passion. It confirms for us that when Jesus taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed tomb, he was not alive. He had died on the cross.

The second psalm for this Sunday evening’s service is Tim Manion’s arrangement of “Psalm 22: My God, My God.” Psalm 22 is the common psalm appointed for Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Manion’s arrangement is available from Oregon Catholic Press (OCP). The dismissal song is the Bath Abbey Choir’s rendition of the African American spiritual, “Where You There When They Crucified My Lord.”

The Scripture reading for this Sunday evening is John 19:31-37 Jesus’ Side Is Pierced

The homily is titled, “He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions.”

The link to this Sunday evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2021/03/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for-sunday_28.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.

If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.

Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/

May this service be a blessing to you.

COVID-19 and Your Church: An Interview with the CDC’s Dr. Jay Butler

Dr. Butler talks with Ed Stetzer about Covid, the church, vaccines, ethics, and the future.

Dr. Ed Stetzer: Where are we—or do we even know—in the midst of this pandemic?

Dr. Jay Butler: What we can describe is where we’ve been and how that might reflect what’s going to happen next. Right now, we are at a stage where we’ve come down from the worst of the pandemic that occurred in early January. But, we’re also at a critical inflection point because we’re at a time now where the number of cases has stopped declining.

Over the past couple of weeks, it’s really been a flat line. We are still seeing anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000 new cases every day. Sadly, roughly one thousand additional deaths are reported each day. These are numbers similar to what we saw at the peak of the so-called second wave last summer. So we’re at a point where it is way too early to say whether or not this is over yet.

A lot of what happens next depends on us, and how we respond to what we continue to learn about this virus. Read More

Philippians 2 and the Mind-Blowing Mystery of Christian Obedience

Some things in the Bible are intuitive. Many statements in Proverbs, for example, could easily be discovered by personal experience (e.g., the wringing of the nose brings forth blood, (Prov. 30:33). But some things in Scripture are so mind-bending that we’d probably never believe them if God hadn’t inspired them.

The relationship between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility is one of those things. How does Christian obedience work? Is it something we do, or something God does in us? And if it’s something we do, how can God get the glory instead of us? Moreover, is obedience something we should actively seek, or should we simply “let go and let God”? If salvation is something God does from start to finish (Phil. 1:6), what does that leave for us to do? Read More

The Startling Evidence of a Changed Life

When someone is converted to trust in Jesus, the change in their lives is also remarkable. I have seen some startling changes in people. Muslim women have stopped wearing their scarves and started wearing crosses around their necks. Previous heavy drinkers have become sober. Selfish, proud people become the first people to help others. The changes that the Holy Spirit makes in people’s lives are incredible.

A life that is fundamentally changed by Jesus is evidence to those around you that Jesus is real. In fact, a consistent Christian life lived amongst non-Christians is probably the most convincing piece of evidence you can show someone that our faith is real. Think about this. Your work colleagues and your unbelieving families have probably never gone to church or read the Bible. Unless something happens to make them do this, they maybe never will. They need to see evidence there is something to Jesus. That evidence might be you. Read More

All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (March 27, 2021)

All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

Who would have thought that heaven’s high king would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey to be enthroned upon a cross? Who would have thought that he would surrender his glory to bear our sins and die for us? Who would have thought….?

The Scripture reading for this Saturday evening is Luke 19: 28-40 Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

The homily is titled “A King on a Donkey”

The link to this Saturday evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2021/03/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for-saturday_27.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.

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Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/

May this service be a blessing to you.

Might Embracing Digital Reincarnation Renew Your Church

One of the ways Christianity thrives in every age is through employing the emerging technological paradigms to foster faithful inculturation.

The apostles used the written word delivered through the flows of the cursus publicus (Latin for “the public way”), which was the courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire. The first disciples used a complex web of older and emerging technologies: oral tradition, written word, road systems, and mail courier.

Christians have always adapted the emerging technologies for the expansion of the faith. Paul’s uses of these technologies helped the first scattered churches communicate and multiply. Early Christian adoption of the codex preserved and spread the Gospels. Johannes Guttenberg’s printing press fueled the Reformation. Billy Graham’s use of stadiums, microphones, and speakers in his evangelism crusades, gave birth to the first modern megachurches.

The traditional church utilizes multiple layers of technology that would have been considered strange or even idolatrous to generations past (electricity, projectors, microphones, PowerPoint slides, etc.) It is hypocritical to judge emerging technology while gripping tightly to our own. Critically evaluating the technology of a new generation and the technology of our own inheritance is essential.

Like the great cloud of witnesses before us, we have utilized technology to sustain our churches throughout the pandemic. We have discovered how to reach people across the United States whom we would have never reached before. Even as the vaccine begins to outpace infection rates, many of us will continue to connect in this way.

Yet, very few have gone far enough. We need to think of digital technology less as tools to livestream our services and more as a new missional frontier to be explored. Read More

What Do Americans Actually Believe About the Resurrection?

The truthfulness of the resurrection is not as controversial today as many Christians may assume. The bigger issue, however, may be helping Americans recognize the relevance of Jesus rising from the dead.

Two-thirds of American adults (66%) say they believe the biblical accounts of the physical resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate, according to the 2020 State of Theology from Lifeway Research. One in 5 (20%) disagree, and 14% are not sure. Read More

Palm Sunday and the Gospel

A reminder of God’s deep love for you

Palm Sunday is when Jesus rode into town on a donkey and they put down palm branches declaring, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” It was a declaration of his kingship. They had no idea that in just a few days he would be whipped, beaten, scourged and hung on a cross to die for the sins of them, you and me. But on the third day he would arise from the dead to conquer death, hell and the grave.

Jesus’ finished work reconciles us back to God. This is the gospel. How did this all come about? Read More

Also See:
What Happened on Palm Sunday

Key Signs of an Abusive Pastor #3: Overly Critical and Harsh with Others

I’m continuing my blog series on spiritual abuse in the church which I am calling “Bully Pulpit”. You can see the prior installments here , here, and here. Since spiritual abuse is not as easy to spot as other forms of abuse, I am working my way through a number of key signs that churches should be on the watch for.

We come now to a third sign of a spiritually abusive pastor, namely that they are known for being overly critical and harsh with those under them. As Chuck DeGroat observes in his book, When Narcissism Comes to Church, abusive pastors are known for their “hypercriticism” of others (121).

Let’s unpack this a little further. Read More

How to Preach to Youth Effectively

Need some tips on how to preach to youth? Preaching to teenagers can be extremely challenging but is also extremely rewarding. After years serving as a youth pastor, I’ve learned a few things about how to preach to youth. These lessons were hard-learned through trial and error. Mostly error.

I’ve collected some tips that will hopefully prevent you from having to learn the hard way, as I did. This isn’t an exhaustive list but should help you immensely with your youth messages. Read More

Answering the Top 10 Questions in the Abortion Debate

The disciples, like many people in Jewish culture, did not value children as much as adults because their needs were just not as important. But children were Jesus’ first priority. In fact, he says children are in the best posture to receive his kingdom, and unless we grasp that we are all like them—vulnerable and helpless, spiritually speaking—we’ll never truly reach out for the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3). When we do, we’ll have a special place in our hearts for the vulnerable and helpless.

There is no group more helpless and vulnerable today than children in the womb.

This year marks 48 years since the Supreme Court declared abortion to be a fundamental right. Abortion was the leading cause of death worldwide in 2018, with 42 million victims. Last year an estimated 900,000 babies in the U.S. were electively aborted, which is more than the total American casualties in the two World Wars and the Vietnam War combined. In the U.S., 90 percent of preborn humans diagnosed with Down syndrome are terminated.

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile says, “It’s staggeringly clear that the largest scale injustice—the most morally outrageous thing happening in our society today—is the killing of children in the womb.”

If you want to defend the vulnerable and fight systemic injustice, there are few places where dire urgency meets such moral clarity and clear opportunity as with the cause of the protection of children in the womb. Read More

Religious Conference Planning Continues amid COVID-19, Socially Distant or Online

Religious conference planners are waiting to hear whether their meetings will go on as expected this year and contemplating how they will look as the pandemic continues.

In early March, Harry Schmidt learned the answers to questions some religious conference organizers may be asking: What’s it like to hold an in-person event in the midst of an ongoing pandemic?

When more than 300 planners and exhibitors gathered in North Carolina at the Religious Conference Management Association’s annual meeting, they got a glimpse of what could be ahead for their upcoming convocations, synods and general assemblies:

Four people — sitting 6 feet apart — were served fresh prepackaged meals at round tables set 10 feet apart in a ballroom in the Charlotte Convention Center.

Attendees walked along one-way aisles in the exhibit area, where they could speak face-to-face — or, rather, mask-to-mask — but there was no handing out of “trade-show tchotchkes.”

Registrants were screened before entering the building and given a QR code to present once they were inside.

“It really became a great model,” said Schmidt, president and CEO of the Indianapolis-based association that worked in collaboration with regional convention and public health officials in planning the event.

“Everybody wore a mask at all times except for when they were actually consuming food.”

Religious conference planners and exhibitors, like the hundreds gathered in early March in Charlotte, are waiting to hear whether their meetings will go on as expected this year and contemplating how those conferences will look as the pandemic continues and vaccination levels increase. Read More

Image Credit: Baptist Press

Churches Embrace of Technology Likely Permanent

   Tommy Green conducts a Zoom meeting from his office at the
        Florida Baptist Convention building in Jacksonville, Fla.

Facebook timelines changed forever on Sunday, March 15, 2020.

Many if not most churches opted to go digital-only that day after witnessing such steps as President Trump declaring COVID-19 a national emergency and professional and collegiate sports suspending activities. As church leaders looked to make services available for members, Facebook scrambled to keep up with the increased demand, which was created in large part by those congregations livestreaming on the social media platform.

The following weeks brought a sink-or-swim time for churches regarding technology. Those not using it before had to learn – quickly. Offering plates were traded for giving through an app. Living room couches became pews. Laptops at the kitchen table hosted Sunday school classes, prayer group gatherings and church staff meetings. The word “zoom” – up to then classified as a verb – became a noun (“Let’s meet on Zoom”) and then a verb again, as in “We’re going to Zoom Sunday night.”

Of the seismic changes brought by COVID-19, the expansion of online platforms for churches is perhaps the biggest. With Barna Research showing that just 3 percent of churches remained open as usual in late March 2020, finding other options to meet became paramount.

One year later COVID cases are on the decline, and people are venturing out from their homes more often. Yet, even as the number of churchgoers attending in-person has continued to rise, leaders are quick to say that the need for an online presence isn’t going anywhere. Read More

Image Credit: Florida Baptist Convention

The Atlanta Massacre Is Yet Another Reminder We Desperately Need Race-Conscious Discipleship

Most people don’t understand how Asian Americans have been racialized and how racism actually impacts us.

My phone started lighting up with notifications. By now, when this happens, it’s usually because an incident involving race has occurred. As I picked up my phone, I saw the words, “8 shot dead in Atlanta.” My stomach dropped. All I could say to myself was: “Lord, have mercy. Not again. No more.”

At the start of the pandemic, anyone who had even a basic understanding of how race functions in society knew the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump would lead to discrimination, targeting and violence against Asian Americans. This is why we at the Asian American Christian Collaborative wrote the “Statement on Anti-Asian Racism in the Time of COVID-19.” As we watched the number of incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate, we knew that we were about to see another spike of anti-Asian racism. What we hoped was for efforts like ours to get the church to speak up against anti-Asian racism.

With more than 12,000 signatures, and pastors from small congregations to nationally recognized ones preaching about the rise in violence against Asian Americans, I believed the church could potentially help prevent some of the incidents we would see. But as time passed, and as the news cycle moved on to the next thing, it was clear Asian American issues, despite the continued struggles and pains we faced, would fall off the radar — including within the church. Read More

Also See:
500 Years of Anti-Asian Violence. It Must End Now.
Silent No More: Political Activism in the Asian American Church

Growing Number of Southern Baptist Women Question Roles

Emily Snook is the daughter of a Southern Baptist pastor. She met her husband, also a pastor, while they attended a Southern Baptist university

Yet the 39-year-old Oklahoma woman now finds herself wondering if it’s time to leave the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, in part because of practices and attitudes that limit women’s roles.

“Every day I ask that,” Snook said. “I don’t know what the right answer is.”

She’s not alone. Among the millions of women belonging to churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, there are many who have questioned the faith’s gender-role doctrine and more recently urged a stronger response to disclosures of sexual abuse perpetrated by SBC clergy. Read More

See Also:

Should Southern Baptist Women Be Preachers?

Sexism Has Long Been Part of the Culture of Southern Baptists

From Prayer to Practice: 4 Keys to Ignite Evangelism in the Local Church

Every day at 9:37 a.m., my phone vibrates and chimes, reminding me to pray Matthew 9:37-38. “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.”

I learned this habit from an evangelistic conference I attended in college, but it took several years before I realized God wanted me to be the answer to that prayer.

The 2019 Lifeway Research Discipleship Pathway Assessment study reveals a common experience among churchgoers—willingness to pray but hesitancy to proclaim the gospel to their friends, neighbors, and family. Fifty-five percent of monthly churchgoers had not shared how to become a Christian with anyone in the previous six months, yet 56% of churchgoers pray weekly for opportunities to share.

Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said in that report, “The task of making disciples of all nations has not been fully embraced in the American church—especially by the majority culture.” We must pray in order to carry out the Great Commission, but we also must go. Read More

A Reason to Celebrate; A Cause to Rejoice

Eleven years ago, I stood in the chapel at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY, and shared with our faculty and staff that my 71-year old father had become a believer. We had prayed for him for 36 years, and God dramatically changed him. Dad was so different the last three years of his life that we had to get to know a different man. He became lovable, humble, teachable, gracious, and joyous—filled with the peace of God that surrounded him even at death.

My mom, though, wasn’t there yet. We’ve continued to pray for her since then, and I’ve asked believers around the world to join me in that praying. Well . . . I’m rejoicing today that God has saved my mom! I talked with her for some time earlier this week, and she spoke openly of the peace and forgiveness God has granted her. Like I did with my dad before her, I heard in her voice the joy of redemption. Needless to say, I and my believing family members are praising the Lord today! Read More

One Step Your Church Should Accomplish Before Looking Ahead

n my early days of ministry, you would have found me guilty of viewing the people of our congregation as vessels to be filled instead of torches to be lit. May that never be said again of me or you as a church leader.

But today, we have a tremendous opportunity to build an army, not just an audience, in the wake of COVID-19, but it will not be easy.

The greatest obstacle that stands in our way of emerging from this crisis with a stronger church body faithfully engaged in using their gifts in service to Christ is clarity in the midst of chaos.

Every leader is leading through the uncertainty of the day but can’t afford to allow that lack of certainty to manifest itself and become a lack of clarity.

Your staff and congregation will follow you through uncertainty, but they can’t follow you if you’re unclear about where your church is going and where they fit into the process.

Remember, there are often more people ready to volunteer, serve, and sacrifice in crisis times. But we need to be sure we’re clear and compelling when we ask them to do so.

We will need to consider new or modified strategies, structures, systems, and skills as we adjust our ministry programming and practices to reopen our churches and find a new normal.

It is easy to stay in the denial stage and avoid addressing how this will change existing volunteer roles and add new roles to the table, but that is what we must do as church leaders. Read More

Also See:

Six Reasons Senior Pastors Should Lead a Mentoring Group

Richard Bewes and Equipped to Serve

Richard Bewes was the Rector of All Souls, Langham Place for 21 years. He retired to Ealing and so I would occasionally pop in on him for coffee. He would preach for me, but attended the local Anglican Church near his home, much to my frustration. I wouldn’t have theologically dotted all his i’s nor he crossed my t’s but he was a generous, catholic spirited, conservative, Anglican, evangelical. Richard went home to glory in 2017.

Richard was a gentle, loveable man. He led All Souls when it was at its largest and kept together a very diverse staff team. I think it would be fair to say he was quite eccentric, so when we would pray together he would say, “Here we are Lord at Curzon Road in West Ealing. You know Paul…” There was a delightful reverent familiarity that he had with the Lord in prayer. I often wondered why he told the Lord our address, but there was a genuineness about his prayer life which was endearing. He was slightly nervous about a burglary at one point as he was often away preaching, so he built what can only be described as a dummy and dressed it up as himself which sat in his living room. So we had coffee and prayed together with the three of us sitting there: Richard, myself, and the dummy.

He once got me involved in filming a series of short online sermons. I was determined not to be involved, but somehow Richard persuaded me. I’d never done it before and never hope to do it again. My abiding memory was him telling me to ‘introduce yourself, and treat the camera like an old friend’. He was a master at it, I most certainly was not. If you get the chance just look at how he greets the camera in these two sermons – The World in 1 Place and Who can crack the code Read More