Faith

According to an article in the Mail & Guardian Online:

A deeply pious Dutch businessman is well on his way to completing a faithful reconstruction of Noah's Ark in scaled down form on the basis of biblical texts, the Volkskrant newspaper reported on Thursday. Johan Huibers (47) plans to take his 70m vessel on a tour of the Dutch waterways once it is complete, hoping to set out in spring next year.

Something on the order of 1 to 4 million North Americans participate in a short term mission trips, at a cost of a few billion dollars a year. Conventional wisdom says these activities make a long-lasting positive impact on both the missionaries and the people they visit. Recent research by Kurt Ver Beek (his website is here and some discussion is here) argues that neither group is significantly affected in the long run.

Another silly controversy...from an article in USA Today:

This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country. Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day. Critics within the evangelical community, more accustomed to doing battle with department stores and public schools over keeping religion in Christmas, are stunned by the shutdown. It is almost unheard of for a Christian church to cancel services on a Sunday, and opponents of the closures are accusing these congregations of bowing to secular culture.

At Salt and Light, there's an interesting passage about leadership in churches from the recently-published book "Seeking A Lasting City" by ACU professors Love, Foster, and Harris.  It describes how leadership has transitioned from the "authoritarian" model to that of the corporate board, the "...careful decision-maker who seeks to be sensitive to the needs and desires of a constituency." 

The authors argue:

So now the question about potential leaders is not about quality of their strategic thinking ability, but about the quality of their prayer lives and attentiveness to God. People long for this kind of leadership. Today most people can make their own decisions and generally want to do so.....congregations can learn to self-govern....but we all desire the relationship with that person who can guide us into the depths of the heart of God. We all need that spiritual friend and guide...The time for a board of directors approach has passed. The key to leadership in our churches today is ethical, holy living; what we desperately need now are spiritual guides. Will our leaders hear the call?"

There was another interesting blog entry by Krister that I can relate to.  It's about how, for some strange reason, everyone else's faults are so much more important and bad than our own.  Here's an excerpt:

Because I'm not really a big drinker, I can't identify with drunkenness. I may tend to put alcoholics in a different category of sin than those who are simply angry people. I've experienced anger, though, so I decide that because anger is more common it receives less condemnation. Gal. 5:19-21 includes a vice list that is made up of activities and feelings that Paul himself says are indicative of a people who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Somewhere in there are items like jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, etc. Do we not experience this in our churches each and every Sunday? Where are the picket signs that read "God hates jealousy!" or "God hates quarrels!"? These hit too close to home for us and are therefore overlooked as inconsequential. It's so much easier to condemn when we have not experienced one of the other sins in the lists from Romans 1 or Gal. 5 or 1 Cor. 5.