Curiosity is indispensable for church leadership – and for faith formation. Gen Z was not supposed to be the religious generation. Pollsters have spent two decades describing this cohort as the most secular in American history, the one that would finally break the chain of belief...
TMC Program Associate Jennifer Watley Maxell speaks with Elizabeth Lynn, Andrew Yeager, and Marthame Sanders about what we lose as we read and speak less; whether the church can be a backstop amid a cacophony of competing voices; and why word and image, story and...
In the days leading up to Hurricane Isaias, people throughout the Gulf Coast region flocked to grocery stores to buy bottled water, milk, toilet paper, and canned goods. The impulse to stockpile in the face of crisis reveals a type of fear that grips many of...
In a recent TMC podcast, Allison Norton and Scott Thumma of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research highlighted data showing that congregations’ openness to change rose during the pandemic. This makes sense. Every faith community had to try lots of things they had never done...
As some of our churches plan Harvest Parties for the children as an alternative to Halloween, the children are already planning their costumes. There will be tiny vampires, witches with pointy black hats, fairy princesses with magic wands, and little pumpkins in strollers who are...
TMC Program Staff Mark Ramsey, Jennifer Watley Maxell, and Beth Daniel speak with Kyle Bender about leading in a world that changes faster than we can adapt, where pastoral care ends and therapy begins, and why compassion may be the church’s most important gift to...
Fall is that season in which church boards turn their attention toward the deeper, more perennial questions of church life. What should we do next? And how can we reach more people? These well-intentioned discussions often revolve around adding new programs, improving programs already in place,...
TMC Program Staff Beth Daniel, Adam Mixon, and Adam Borneman continue their conversation with the Rev. Katie Nakamura Rengers (St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, Honolulu about her recent blog post for TMC, the importance of welcoming questions, and why we need to be able to recognize when...
Throughout the scriptures, God does not promise that nothing bad is coming. Quite the opposite. For example, the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah assumes there will be overwhelming waters and consuming fire. The promise isn't that these things won't happen. It's: "When...