CRAZY HEARTS

These are crazy times whether reading e-mails, understanding statistics

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What do those few words below your church’s name really signify? They may

CRYSTAL HUBRIS

Two years ago, July 9, a hastily called meeting of board members of the Crystal Cathedral Ministries was held, and while Senior Pastor Robert Anthony Schuller was a bit mystified, he wasn’t alarmed. At the end of that meeting, where his siblings and father had majority votes, he would no longer be speaking from the pulpit. He had been effectively fired.

GILBERT-ISTAN

A church of seven adult members is told by its city that it’s illegal to hold religious services in their own homes. Golly, shades of Uzbekistan. In the same week we learned that the country of Uzbekistan levied massive fines on Baptists for meeting without a license and the town of Gilbert (AZ) banned church meetings in the homes of its residents.

In the same week we learned that the country of Uzbekistan levied massive fines on Baptists for meeting without a license and the town of Gilbert (AZ) banned church meetings in the homes of its residents.

Church bodies exposed

There’s the old saw that denominations exist today only because of real estate and pension plans. I heard that said 15 years ago and sure, it’s an overstatement, but it makes a relevant point.

MEGA THINKING

When 120 executive pastors and pastors met in February for David Fletcher’s 2010 XP-Seminar — more than half present there for the first time — the topic of the hour was the national economy and the hits that churches have taken in their budgets, building plans and outreach.

It’s Got To Stop

Howard Beale in Network might just as well have been yelling about the fraud and embezzlement that is epidemic in the church, but who’s listening?

HIGH CALLING

After my father died 20 years ago, I went to my parents’ safe deposit box at the local bank to see what might be there for mother’s financial support. For 40 years and one month of his work life he helped make Hershey milk chocolate and saved what he could.

TAKE A STAND

I was graduated from college in the early 1960s and immediately got a job in community newspaper journalism, never thinking that maybe some larger cause might require my presence and passions. But I wasn’t an activist, not even for racial justice that was then still being played out in Southern cities at drug store counters and far worse situations.

BOOKS GALORE

How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? With family and friends I trust, or cleaning the garage? I devoted a number of hours to making sense of my den that doubles as a library — 40 running feet of books, most of them church and management titles collected over 15 years.