By: Kyle Chalko on February 10, 2018
By far the biggest enemy of the American Church is consumerism, with a close second being that of selfish ambition. (Maybe it’s selfish ambition feeding our consumerism?) Vincent J. Miller in his book Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture explores the connection between consumerism and religion. Miller lays out in his…
By: Jason Turbeville on February 10, 2018
When I was a student in seminary the Texas state lottery was at 800 million. I was curious if the pastor at the church I was interning at would accept a tithe from this if someone in the congregation won the lottery. In my head the good that money could do through ministry was mind…
By: Trisha Welstad on February 9, 2018
This week I met with a student and former intern of mine for coffee. As we chatted, I asked her about whether she had found another church home since participating in the ministry at her internship last summer. Although she has looked into a few locations nothing seems to be a great fit yet. Some…
By: Kristin Hamilton on February 8, 2018
When I was 9 months pregnant and my daughter decided that 13 days was an appropriate amount of time to be late, every woman who had ever given birth decided to tell me how all of their kids had been right on time with hardly any trouble. Considering I’d already had two difficult pregnancies and…
By: Chip Stapleton on February 8, 2018
It’s Lonely at the Top….. but when life hands you lemons, try making lemonaide While most of us appreciate a little ‘alone time’, very few people would choose to be isolated from others, especially for any extended period of time. But just because we might not choose times of isolation (often called ‘wilderness’ or ‘desert’…
By: Jean Ollis on February 8, 2018
Have you seen the HGTV show Tiny House Hunters? Individuals/couples/families seek to purchase or build small homes, typically 400 square feet or less (and preferably on wheels). The Tiny House phenomenon is sweeping the nation and I’m feeling the tiny house fever myself. I’ve convinced myself that I could live comfortably in a compact space…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on February 8, 2018
I have found over the course of my short life that I have encountered moments in life that have caused me to decide to take a break or forced me into a place where I had no other options. In either of the ways in which I arrived at this place, the outcome has always…
By: Katy Drage Lines on February 8, 2018
Setting: Turkana, Kenya. It was late at night, the sky was clear & the Milky Way spanned from horizon to horizon. But I didn’t see it because I was crouched on the floor of our tiny kitchen, bawling. NW Kenya can be a quiet & isolated place, and that night I felt it more than…
By: Jay Forseth on February 8, 2018
[1] In the Introduction to Vincent J. Miller’s book, Consuming Religion, the author garnered my immediate attention when talking about the “voluntary simplicity movement” [2] and my mind immediately went to the “tiny home” movement as a worthy modern comparison. Many folks are weary of needless consumerism and the mindless accumulation of stuff, and are gravitating to…
By: Mark Petersen on February 8, 2018
I’ve been working professionally in Christian philanthropy for eighteen years. As time has passed, I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo of how high net worth North American Christians practice giving. I have a growing conviction that the way we practice Christian philanthropy is entangled with a consumer cultural orientation, and that it must…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on February 8, 2018
When my son was in middle school, his best friend moved away and he struggled to make new friends in a less than welcoming environment. It was heartbreaking to see his eyes well up with tears from the lunches and recesses he often spent alone, and I wished I could take this pain away. Yet,…
By: Chris Pritchett on February 8, 2018
When Jesus made his first visit to the Temple in Jerusalem, according to John (the synoptics only have Jesus visit Jerusalem once at the end of his life), he was upset (one could argue he was livid) that his Father’s Temple had been turned into a marketplace to buy and sell religious goods to pilgrims…
By: Lynda Gittens on February 8, 2018
just for the picture Author Shelley Trebesch’s book, Isolation, seeks to assist those in Leadership to understand the need to Pause and Refresh from their busy lives. In past times, one was always taught to work hard to succeed; the early bird catches the worm; you lose if you snooze; or while you…
By: Dave Watermulder on February 8, 2018
In his introduction to “Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture”, Vincent J. Miller writes, “this book explores how consumer culture changes our relationships with religious beliefs, narratives, and symbols… chapter 2 will present the core of the analysis. The basic idea is the ‘commodification of culture.’”[1] This book is both refreshing…
By: Stu Cocanougher on February 8, 2018
Our church no longer has a printed church newsletter. Instead, we have an online newsletter on our website called “The Latest.” In that newsletter we talk about things that are happening in the church, highlight ministries, and sometimes we even have book reviews. Upon reading Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of a…
By: Greg on February 8, 2018
At twelve thousand feet above see level it is hard to breath; especially in a line with 1000 people. In Lhasa, Tibet while visiting the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple, I stood in line with a friend to see and understand this site that Tibetans make pilgrimage to. After about an hour, our line moved into…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on February 7, 2018
Vincent Miller’s Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture was eye-opening, to say the least. Miller did an excellent job of presenting the argument that religious people have come to be consumers of religion much like we consume everything else in our culture. The chapter of the book that caught my attention…
By: Dan Kreiss on February 7, 2018
While the Christian ethic toward frugality, generosity and simplistic living has been inherent in the faith tradition from inception, the adoption of consumeristic ideology has been an incredibly powerful counterforce. Thus, for most in the US church God’s ‘blessing’ is viewed solely through economic terms and depicted in living a comfortable existence while making sure…
By: Mary Walker on February 7, 2018
Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of a Leader Building on the work of Dr. J. Robert Clinton, Shelley Trebesch explains a necessary part of leadership development – “isolation processing”. Dr. Trebesch gives the definition of isolation as “the setting aside of a leader from normal ministry involvement in its natural context usually…
By: Jim Sabella on February 7, 2018
The photo you see is the “real” Jim Sabella. I am one who gains their energy and refreshing in times of quiet isolation. That’s one reason why I prefer, for example, fly fishing in the Owyhee river over fly fishing the Delaware River. Both are beautiful in their own way. The Delaware rises from the Catskill Mountains…
