In early July, Jonathan spent a week at a conference in Blaine, WA: Foundations of Molecular Modeling and Simulation 2006. He flew into Seattle on Sunday afternoon and stopped at a mall to have lunch and watch the end of the world cup finals: Italy vs. France. The weather in Blaine was rainy on several days but pretty nice on others. The conference was enjoyable, especially meeting old friends. The many events with open bars was good for fostering interactions between attendees but not so good for the waistline. I took a red-eye flight home Friday night/Saturday morning.

From an article titled "News - A cappella membership drops as churches fail to keep pace with population growth" by Bobby Ross Jr. in The Christian Chronicle:

The number of members and congregations of non-instrumental churches of Christ fell 1 percent in the last three years, according to the latest edition of Churches of Christ in the United States.

The 2006 directory, compiled by Carl H. Royster in consultation with Mac Lynn, reports 12,963 a cappella churches of Christ at the end of 2005.

Those congregations had 1,265,844 baptized members, according to the directory, published by 21st Century Christian in Nashville, Tenn. Both figures represent declines from 13,155 congregations and 1,276,621 baptized members when the last edition of the directory was published in 2003.

"As a general rule, it seems like the smaller congregations were getting smaller and the larger congregations were getting larger," Royster said. "But there were plenty of exceptions to that.

"To say I had something definite to attribute (the decline) to, I can't."

The number of adherents — which includes children of members — fell to 1,639,495, down from 1,656,717 three years ago.

Some of the decline could be attributed to a cappella churches that started using instruments since 2003 and fell off the list, Royster said. Since 1980, the overall U.S. population has risen about 25 percent, but the non-instrumental fellowship has increased only about 2 percent, said Flavil Yeakley, director of the Harding Center for Church Growth in Searcy, Ark.

By comparison, instrumental Christian Churches/Churches of Christ grew by 19.6 percent in the 1990s, the second-fastest rate among 15 religious groups in the U.S. that identify themselves as "Christian" and have 1 million or more adherents, Yeakley said.

"Only the Mormons grew faster," Yeakley said.

The five states with the most a cappella congregations and members in the 2006 edition are Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

From an article of the same title by Mark Moring in Christianity Today:

When Mel Gibson made The Passion of the Christ, no Hollywood studio would touch it, so the director funded it himself. But when the movie earned $371 million, Tinseltown took note, and it was only a matter of time before it decided to jump on the Jesus bandwagon.

Now two major Jesus-themed films are in the works: On December 1, New Line Cinema, which hit it big with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, releases The Nativity Story. And next Easter, Sony Pictures, the studio behind The Da Vinci Code, releases The Resurrection.

The Nativity Story tells the tale of Joseph and Mary, the journey of the magi, the rule of King Herod, and the birth of Christ. The Resurrection picks up where The Passion left off, telling the story of the 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension.