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| HOME THE BOOK FIND A CHURCH BLOG |
So we know what doesnt work.
We’ve got plenty of evidence to substantiate that…
But what does work?
What does make a good church?
What it is about the churches you do like that keep (kept) you coming back?
Size?
Preaching?
Parking?
Kids?
None of the above
Benjamin, co-host of our Justice and Compassion blog, sent us this Wall Street Journal article.
Banned from church
On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. “And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P.”Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff’s officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs. [you can listen to the 911 call from a link in the original article]
The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey’s real offense, in her pastor’s view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had questioned his authority, he’d charged her with spreading “a spirit of cancer and discord” and expelled her from the congregation. “I’ve been shunned,” she says.
| February 12, 2008 |
Jim has been invited to speak at Hardin Simmons University in Abilene TX on Feb. 12. He will be speaking at chapel at 9:30am. After chapel, he will have lunch and conversation with students and faculty.
He’ll be talking about the book Jim and Casper go to Church.
Contact us for more information.
The morning after our big Covenant Community interview at Grace Community Church Traci and I debriefed briefly over the phone. She told me she had spent part of the morning replaying it in her head, remembering things she wished she’d have said. I reminded her that, thanks to the blissfully small ego and hospitable spirit of Jim Henderson, we have a place where we can say what we wish we’d have said. I had a couple unspoken answers myself.
(more…)
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Barna review of Jim and Casper go to Church
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