Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Wednesday's Catch: 'With Eyes to See Addiction, Appalachian Churches Respond to the Opioids Crisis' And More


With Eyes to See Addiction, Appalachian Churches Respond to the Opioids Crisis
As the toll of overdoses continue to rise, congregations provide recovery, medical care, and redemption.

America’s loneliness epidemic is the church’s calling
In a recently released advisory, the U.S. Surgeon General raised an alarm about the “devastating impact of the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in America,” citing harm to individual and societal health and calling on the nation to “prioritize building social connection.” At the same time, studies show a continuing decline in the percentage of Americans who regularly visit the one place where the ultimate connection is formed and joyful, relational communities thrive — their neighborhood church.

Drawing Back Those Who See Attending Church as ‘Inconvenient’
If some of your pre-pandemic congregation still aren’t attending church services again, consider these ways to help them return.

How to Faithfully Engage the Dechurched Movement as a Church in Exile
In this episode of As in Heaven, hosts Jim Davis and Michael Graham welcome Jake Meador to discuss the merits of having a posture of a “church in exile.” They explore how this exilic posture could help us close the back door of the church and regain our prophetic voice.

Keeping Your Church Young and Vibrant
To stay healthy and maintain its mission, any entity must be constantly reinventing itself, tweaking its systems, sloughing off the old and dead, birthing the new. Renewing, renovating, refining, rediscovering. Choose your term.

5 Signs of Complacency in the Church
A complacency in the church has to do with self-satisfaction, a sense of contentment regarding the state of things. And it all starts with complacency in a leader.

How to Discern If a Church Member Is Guilty of Gossip
Gossip is a destructive force in the church. Once the rumors of gossip spread, it’s hard to correct if they are false. Even if partially true, gossip is always wrong because what is shared is inappropriate and hurtful.

5 Ways To Handle Frustrating People
Understanding how to deal with frustrating people in the times when you are most frustrated is critical to creating a culture that produces great work and emotionally healthy staff.

Prosperity Doctrine Isn’t Just Wrong—It’s Harmful
Book Review of 'Stand Up for the Gospel' by Emmanuel Kwasi Amoafo

So, What Did Jesus Think about the Old Testament?
Here are three things that Jesus believed about the Old Testament....

20 Ways to Pray for Worship Leaders
Here are 20 ways to pray for worship leaders.

3 Questions to Ask When Trying to Find a Good Church
Finding a church is hard work. For many, it involves week after week of making visit after visit, scouring websites, and listening to multiple messages. Despite the difficulty, it’s good for us to take care when trying to find a church though. That’s because finding and committing yourself to a local congregation is incredibly important.

Clearer picture emerging of UMC’s future
Even before its official year of splintering is completed, United Methodists are carving out a clearer identity for the denomination’s future and a clearer picture is emerging of who has stayed and who has left, about clergy health and the state of LGBTQ inclusion.

Conservative cardinal predicts Synod on Synodality could lead to schism
Cardinal Raymond Burke is considered a leading voice among Catholic conservatives and papal critics.

New SBC head attends a dually aligned church and his wife is a ‘minister’
The new interim president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee is a member of a church dually aligned with the SBC and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and where his seminary-educated wife holds the job title “minister of students and discipleship.”

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