We expect our congregations to be places of health and healing, an oasis in the midst of the demands and stresses of daily life. Yet some people experience great pain in their congregations, pain that robs them of the comfort…

About a week after the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11, I walked through Ground Zero. It was during the Days of Awe. Before me was utter devastation: a wasteland of smashed buildings and shattered windows; hideous, fantastic…

Geoffrey’s been a “church guy” for most of his life. Even though he’s a young adult, he buys the idea of organized religion. He has elected not to follow the majority of his age cohort in the false choice of…

Face-to-face relationships characterize life in a small congregation, where truly “there is no place to run and no place to hide” for pastors, church musicians, or congregants. Over the years, we have observed the lively and creative synergy that occurs…

A November 2009 issue of The Week featured a story, “Losing our Religion,” that focused on the rapidly growing numbers of the religiously unaffiliated in the United States, the so called Nones, and asked if organized religion is fading. Younger…

Congregations almost always say they want to grow, but I’ve come to doubt that many really do. The more accurately people picture how a congregation changes when it grows from family-sized to pastoral, program, corporate and beyond, the more clearly…