wikipedia

Amanda Greene 3-14-2014

The crowd sings hymns and prays during WikiWorship. Photo: Amanda Greene/WilmingtonFAVS Via RNS.

Turning part of the message over to church members is the concept behind a new worship model called WikiWorship.

Yes, that’s wiki as in Wikipedia.

It was developed by the Rev. Philip Chryst, pastor of a United Methodist mission in Wilmington, as part of an evangelism course when he was finishing his degree at Duke Divinity School. He’s using it as part of a Lenten series at 9:45 a.m. each Sunday through April 13 in the bar called Hell’s Kitchen.

The week before each WikiWorship, participants submit questions on religion, ethics, life, or God via the mission’s website. Then Chryst chooses one to spur discussion at each service.

Matthew Skinner 9-09-2013
Wikipedia frontpage, Dusit / Shutterstock.com

Wikipedia frontpage, Dusit / Shutterstock.com

God looks like someone who shows patient commitment.

If that’s the case, then we don’t need Wikipedia articles to show us what God is like. We can catch glimpses of God in all sorts of places where people respond to the needs in front of them, whether they set out to do so or not. These glimpses can appear utterly ordinary, like a school bus driver whose commitment to children actually goes beyond transporting them. In this video, notice his presence in their lives, attending to them so none of them can roll away and gets lost in the shadows or cracks.

In the video, driver Jerry James utters a great line: “This is serious business.” He means more than piloting a bus full of children. He means his devotion to them: investing in young people’s lives in the few minutes he has with them every day. He does what he can.

Carrie Adams 1-17-2012
Internet. Blackout. Image via Wylio http://bit.ly/wQpju4

Surfing the Internet during the 2011 Blackout, Oceanside, Calif. Image via Wylio http://bit.ly/wQpju4

You’re on the Internet right now.

Maybe you’re on your phone, or your iPad, or even your desktop at work (it's OK, your secret's safe with us). No matter what your choice of access media, if you’re reading this, you’re on the Internet.

Most of us take Internet access for granted. (Who can remember life before Google?) A seemingly endless, free-to-all source of information, knowledge and distraction, the Internet drives and facilitates transactions both inconsequential and global, simple and complex.

Certainly the Internet has a seedy underbelly, from spammers and basement-dwelling sport hackers to illicit businesses and toxic enterprises.

But who polices it? Who’s the Internet Sheriff?

Cathleen Falsani 9-13-2011

Don't believe most of what you'll hear about Kevin Smith's new movie, Red State.

It is not an angry tirade against religion, nor is it an attack on Christianity guised as a horror flick laden with gratuitous violence.

Smith has described Red State as a horror film, and it is that, but not in the conventional Nightmare on Elm Street iteration. There is violence for sure, but nothing approaching the unrelenting bloodbath of, say, The Passion of the Christ.

Aaron Taylor 7-20-2011

It's funny the things that you remember. I can remember one time when I was a teenager watching an episode of the Montel Williams show. I don't remember the topic, but I do remember Montel criticizing the U.S. government for spending too much money on military defense and not enough on domestic needs. I remember thinking to myself, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." In the world that I knew, the idea of slashing military spending was absolutely, totally, utterly UNTHINKABLE! I personally had never met anyone who thought that way, so I assumed that anyone who would suggest such a thing had to be either a) naive; b) stupid; c) a tree-hugger; or d) unAmerican.
That was then.

I don't know if it's because I changed or because America has changed (or both), but for years it seemed like the only ones who suggested slashing military spending were groups that few Americans could identify with: like hippies, pacifists, environmental and civil rights activists, and conspiracy theorists. Today, the idea that a significant portion of the nation's economic woes is due to wasteful Pentagon spending can be found both on the left and on the right ends of the political spectrum. It can also be found in the Pentagon.

Meet "Mr. Y."

Bryan Farrell 5-25-2011
No one delivers sad irony quite like the United States Military. Yesterday the U.S.
Jeannie Choi 5-13-2011

Tomatoes. Uganda. Fair Trade. Here's a little round up of links from around the Web you may have missed this week:

  • Stop the hate in Uganda.
  • The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asks Senator John Boehner for a budget that "reduces future deficits, protects the poor and vulnerable people, advances the common good, and promotes human life and dignity."
  • Continue praying for Egypt.
Brian McLaren 5-06-2011
A few days ago on my personal blog, I asked this question in response to the celebrations
Aaron Taylor 4-26-2011
Is the gospel about Jesus rescuing us from hell and transporting us to heaven
I was overwhelmed with gratitude as I toured the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf with director Brother Andrew de la Carpentier.
Jake Olzen 2-21-2011
A week after a shocked world reveled in Egypt's incredible moment of freedom and people power, Wisconsin is reviving its own unique tradition of people power and creative protest.
Jim Wallis 2-03-2011

By all journalistic reports, it was the Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak that sent thousands of armed thugs into Tahrir Square and the streets of Cairo yesterday to bring violence to w

Bryan Farrell 1-27-2011
The massive anti-government protests that flared in Egypt yesterday, in which
Troy Jackson 12-07-2010
Last Wednesday, December 1 marked the 55th anniversary of the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott and a movemen
Logan Isaac 11-22-2010

This series written by Logan Mehl-Laituri for God's Politics focuses on selective conscientious objection. Read more posts in this series here.

Here's a logic lesson for you: Both Beck and Grayson use the argument "If A is a B, and A is also a C, then all Bs are Cs." And they shouldn't use this kind of argument.