I have added and updated my Books and Articles links on church and church planting.
Author: Jonathan Dodson
Books and Articles
I have updated my Books and Articles links to reflect current reading and publications. Categories for articles include: Culture, Family, Discipleship, & Church Planting. I am also working on developing a personal reading plan that deliberately includes diverse readings each month. This will give greater focus to my reading. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment!
Barna on Diveristy of Church Expressions
For decades, American Christians, who comprise more than four of our every five adults, assumed they had one legitimate way to practice their faith: through involvement in a conventional church. But new research shows that this mind set is no longer prevalent in the U.S. The latest Barna study shows that a majority of adults now believe that there are various biblically legitimate alternatives to participation in a conventional church.
Each of six alternatives was deemed by a most adults to be “a complete and biblically valid way for someone who does NOT participate in the services or activities of a conventional church to experience and express their faith in God.” Those alternatives include engaging in faith activities at home, with one’s family (considered acceptable by 89% of adults); being active in a house church (75%); watching a religious television program (69%); listening to a religious radio broadcast (68%); attending a special ministry event, such as a concert or community service activity (68%); and participating in a marketplace ministry (54%).
Smaller proportions of the public consider other alternatives to be complete and biblically valid ways of experiencing and expressing their faith in God. Those include interacting with a faith-oriented website (45%) and participating in live events via the Internet (42%).
Tim Chester on Busyness
Tim Chester is co-author of Total Church
- Have you ever been irritated because there was a queue at the supermarket till?
- Do you regularly work thirty minutes a day longer than your contracted hours?
- Do you check work emails and phone messages at home?
- Has anyone ever said to you: ‘I didn’t want to trouble you because I know how busy you are’?
- Do your family or friends complain about not getting time with you?
- If tomorrow evening was unexpectedly freed up, would you use it to work or do a household chore?
- Do you often feel tired during the day or do your find your neck and shoulders aching?
- Do you often exceed the speed limit while driving?
If you mainly answered ‘yes’ then maybe you have a busyness problem.
- Over a third of people agree that ‘in the evenings I am so tired I just fall asleep on the sofa’ (Jones, 2003).
- One in five men has visited the doctor with work-related stress.
- Sixty percent of us feel our workloads are sometimes out of control. One in five feel this way most of the time.