I Like Jesus “I like Jesus – but I don’t go to church.”

Bosco Peters has a very good piece on why people stop going to church, but still call themselves Christians, over on his Liturgy blog.  He relates it to the recent Census figures on church attendance, but gives much more (including at least four Post Scripts to his original post).

Here's the opening paragraph....

OK. Anyone who has been paying attention would be concerned. I’ve seen Christian communities I care about, approximately halve in numbers of people participating in the last fifteen years or so (a period in which the country’s population grew by 20%). The NZ Census figures on religious affiliation, released this week, present a similarly sobering reflection.

Read the rest here. 

Leaving Bebo

On his Liturgy blog the other day, Bosco Peter pointed out an article from his local newspaper which described the probable closing down of Bebo. He quoted the following from the article:

The site has lost members to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Kaila Colbin, of Christchurch social media consultant Missing Link, compared Bebo to a party that people wanted to leave.

“You go to a party, everyone’s having a good time, but suddenly the momentum changes and someone says, `Let’s go to the pub’,” Colbin said. “And people start flowing out. And when people flow out, there is no way to recover that energy.

“The more you try, the more desperate you look and the more people want to leave.”

Bosco comments: Now reread the above, and instead of Bebo think “church” – your parish, diocese, whatever. Any echoes?

Check out the rest of what he has to say....it's quite thought-provoking!

Lent

Lent starts on Wednesday - nice and early this year. Bosco Peters, over at the Liturgy site, has provided a box announcing Lent (in purple, of course) which you can see over to the right. (The Liturgy site, by the way, has a huge following amongst people around the world with a liturgical bent. I can't remember what milestone Bosco hit just the other day, but it was substantial.

You can find the code for it on his main page, plus heaps of resources (not necessarily Anglican) for the coming season, including information on what Lent is (for all those Protestants who've forgotten or never knew), and a heap of other material for using in the area of Christian Discipline....

Preaching Golf

Do you think this is how some congregations hear what they're preachers are saying?




Note that this guy leaves the best till last.

Thanks to Bosco Peters on the liturgy site for bringing this to our attention.

The God Gene

John Cleese, looking considerably older than he does in the endless re-runs of Fawlty Towers, explains some new findings in the gene programme, including the one the makes us believe in God.




Keep your ears open; this is smarter than it seems...!

Thanks to Bosco Peters, who brought this video to my attention...

Decency and Grace

In 1 minute 15 seconds, Tom Peters (with a coda by Seth Godin) talks passionately about two words: 'decency' and 'grace.'



Of course, they're at a business conference. And of course they're talking to business people. But isn't it refreshing to hear them saying what they're saying - with such fire!