COVENANT Number 18ArticlesThe Small Church and Change... Change is the root of belief -- in ourselves, in the confidence we could have in knowing our ministry is critically important to the church as a whole. But change is a scary word. When I advocate change, I can see the faces blanch. Jesus Was No Bean CounterFor over forty years, my life in the church has been lived in small congregations. For nearly all of those years, the church-as-institution has been trying to deal with the "problem" of small churches. The Choice to HealI am a member of St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, located in downtown Oklahoma City. A decade ago, I worked in an office building a block from the church and just across from the Murrah Federal Building. The bombing heavily damaged and shattered that building, my body, my church, and so much of my daily life and the people and places in that daily life. Family ValuesI see nothing grace-filled or charitable, nothing that builds us up as the community of God, in our constantly checking out the plumbing and saying "normative, not-normative, normative, not-normative......" ReviewsColumns |