Habitat team builds new friendships
Music blared from speakers inside the small concrete block house in Coatatelco, Mexico, as we celebrated the end of our Habitat for Humanity building project in May. Our group of three adults and 10 Gonzaga University students had joined with a young family and other villagers to add three rooms to an existing house where [...]
Sometimes evangelism means just showing up
I finished my first Bloomsday race ever a few weeks ago. This was my 22nd Bloomsday in Spokane and I had never experienced this huge Spokane event – a 12k race that begins and ends downtown.
I had some very good reasons for not participating before. For instance, it is a Sunday morning event and most [...]
Your church and your community: what’s going on out there?
I rolled into Colville the afternoon of Maundy Thursday after a drive up Highway 395 through snow squalls. It had been more than a year since I’d visited Colville and, since I had a little extra time, I drove through town.
The first thing I noticed was new traffic circles where stop lights used to be. [...]
Generational differences offer change and promise
One of the most baffling issues for churches these days seems to be how to build a ministry with young adults. There is no lack of information on the topic. The lives of people from their late teens to their early 30s are the subject of a growing number of books, some of which focus [...]
New mission strategy for diocese and congregations
“Build dynamic, growing communities of faith.” “Think big and bold – innovative – open to risk – failure or success.”
Those audacious thoughts come from the Mission Strategy Committee of Diocesan Council. They emerged after a couple days of retreat last year when members, meeting with Bishop Waggoner, dreamed and strategized about strengthening all communities of [...]
Using good books to feed our prayer habit
I suspect that I own way too many books on praying. But this time of the year, when we hear those familiar words on Ash Wednesday that Lent is a time of self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, I’m glad I have them.
I have some real classics like “St. Augustine’s Prayer Book,” “The Imitation of [...]
Resolutions of different sort have impact on whole diocese
I usually take the plunge into the new year with some new resolve about doing something healthy, losing some weight, exercising more, eating better, praying more, taking time off.
If my conversations with folks are any indication, there are a lot of people who would like to pray more, but are looking for some structure as [...]
Growth requires clear vision and willingness to change
I don’t really know much about statistics, having avoided that class through four years of college and three years of graduate school. But I still find them fascinating. l love odd statistical bits and pieces like the observation that the use of drums in worship seems to be related to church growth.
I mentioned that correlation [...]
Growing churches have clarity about mission
Got growth?
That’s a question that came up in this column earlier this year after the Faith Community Today (FACT) study was released. That study looked at more than 14,000 churches, synagogues, temples and mosques in the United States. The Episcopal Church was a participant in that study and Kirk Hadaway, director of research for the [...]
Lessons learned from a near death experience
Remember those opening scenes of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?”
Now those old clips remind me a bit of Tom Pitzer’s Bloomsday experience back on May 6. Pitzer finished Bloomsday, Spokane’s annual 12K race, with a respectable time for a physically-fit 68-year-old who walked and jogged it [...]
