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On a hot day in June 1991, about 130 church members packed the Irvine United Congregational Church sanctuary. The air conditioner wasn’t working. At least, that’s how it felt. “It was tense,” said the Rev. Fred Plumer, the church’s founder and pastor at the time. “There was a lot of excitement and anticipation.” They’d all come to cast their votes. The issue? Should they become an “open and affirming church?” In other words, should the church welcome LGBT members?

  Beware the “graying” of the church – says the common wisdom. And I confess that I have contributed to that concern. My reasoning has been: as the average age of mainline congregants surges past 60, attracting …

There is a very distinct anti-government thread that runs through the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible. The story of how Ahab’s wife had a citizen killed so that the king could take his land represents the danger of how power corrupts an individual and destroys a society. As easy as it is to criticize the abuses of those in power, there is also a personal message in this to reflect on how much better we really are when given the power to abuse others.

In my consulting with churches on communications strategy, we talk about tools: from emailed newsletters to social media to messaging to web sites.

We talk about message: the church’s narrative, its marketing thrust, the visuals it uses to tell its story. We talk about who should be doing the communicating: the pastor, a professional communicator conversant in technology, a staff member with many duties, or a volunteer.

But I have come to realize that the most critical topic of all is audience. Who is the designated audience? Whom is the congregation trying to reach? With whom is the church trying to build a relationship?

This ceremony makes voting a matter of the heart. Anyone can do it! Ask a friend to hold out the hand with which he or she commits to vote in the next election. Hold that hand, or anoint it with light oil, and say: “May God, who is Love (or just Love) guide your hand to vote for the common good!” This video shows the ceremony being conducted at Mt Hollywood Congregational United Church of Christ in Sunday 10:30 worship in Los Angeles on 5-22-16.

Progressives often seem to feel a kind of compassion fatigue from being asked to be concerned about so many different issues of injustice. Perhaps the issue is that we give ourselves permission to give up because we get tired, or bored, or we allow indifference to get the best of us. Perhaps the spiritual prescription for the church is that they should choose to love more.

A reader asked for tech guidance.

“I know you make tech choices thoughtfully and from experience,” he said. “So, I’m always happy when you share your knowledge of particular software/apps, including the pros and cons of each.”

I am happy to oblige, for technology is a critical tool in our respective work. For me, the key is usability.

The United Methodist Church is in the need of prayer. And, one that emphasizes full inclusion of all its parishioners.

At General Conference this month in Portland the struggle to move the church’s moral compass against its anti-LGBTQ policies was courageously demonstrated when over 100 United Methodist Church(UMC) ministers and faith leaders came out to their churches – with Rev. Jay Williams of Union United Methodist Church in Boston’s South End as one of them.

While these ministers and faith leaders undoubtedly moved the hearts of many the church’s policies remain unmoved.

  The word “faith” in early Christianity was more synonymous with “courage” than it was with “belief.” Perhaps the most faithful response to terrorism is to refuse to be terrified. In Brussels on Easter they held a …

The measure of a society isn’t how it treats the young, healthy, beautiful and easy-to-like, but how it handles the vulnerable, the needy, the outcast, the hard-to-like.

Churches, like other enterprises, need several kinds of leadership: maintenance (tending the store), financial (keeping the doors open), staff support (serving constituents), marketing (selling the product), quality control (freshening and problem-solving), and training (transmitting skills and values.)

There is one more leadership skill needed, and this is the critical one. Its absence is keenly felt. That skill is looking into the future. Every leadership team needs some person or group whose charge is to look down the road, to see emerging needs, to see opportunities, to read trends and to imagine the new into being.

“P2P Challenging Extremism” is a new State Department-sponsored program that enlists American college students to combat online extremism.

the CVE agenda adopts a particular approach to religion in which the latter is understood to “cause” political outcomes, both good and bad.

Let’s talk about scheduling. It’s the bane of any complex organization, and yet handling schedules poorly is guaranteed to hurt and offend constituents.

Let’s say you wanted to lead your congregation into being more a faith community and less an institution.

More a people called out of the world (the meaning of ekklesia) by the transformative power of faith, and less a people gathered inside walls, around an altar, where rituals of belonging make them feel safe and loved.

I see four practical ways we can reach outside the walls of our inherited institutional understanding – and thereby become more the community that Jesus called into being.

In the church world, you need to know what is and isn’t working. You need metrics. You can’t just keep doing what you enjoy doing if no one is “buying” it, or continue what worked a decade ago without asking whether it is working today.

More than anything, “preach with power.” Preach a powerful word, preach it as powerfully as you can without sounding shrill or melodramatic, and preach to the power of darkness and to the power of God’s light and love. Kissing off the moment might keep you safe. But it wounds the body of Christ.

As a child in church, I walked by a large bulletin board hung in a well-traveled hallway. I ignored it. So did everyone else.

One researcher suggests that the Golden Rule remains the most common method to resolve ethical dilemmas. More often, however, the Golden Rule is the implicit ethic that underlies and supports codes of good business conduct and responsible consumption.

The websites presented in this document are offered as a service to all who are interested in delving further into the field of business ethics.