Props!

Hi Mike,

I believe that is likely true for untold thousands of people – most of whom never posted a single comment on his site.

Thanks for sharing that!

Hi Vivien,

Yes, it really does – and he never swerved from it!

I would not have a faith without Jim and that page.

Sadly, a functional grasp of community was lost in most of the North American institutional Church long ago.

Years ago, when the disintegration was finally noted, the first, knee jerk reaction of the Church was to try and build that sort of contrived community. They did so with pretty much the tactics you are describing.

It was the failure of those tactics that sparked the, so called, ” Seeker sensitive,” Church where no one would be subjected to that order of public pressure. Those Seeker Churches have gotten big — but, statistically, they have been repeatedly proven to be a subway station where people pass through either coming into Christianity or, mostly, on their way out of the institutional Church.

Apparently, the pendulum is now swinging back…

I get why it’s happening — the Seeker model has not delivered — but I doubt the old model is going to work better then the last time…

People really aren’t interested in either the Patriarchal controlling institution any more then they are interested in the detached Broadway musical institution. It never was the window dressing that was the problem — it was the institution.

It’s sad really. Fixing it all would be so simple — if the leaders of the institutional Church could just figure out that it’s the institution itself that is the problem, realize that the internet has permanently obliterated both the need for and the interest in the talking-head model, punch the rewind button back all the way to before the Emperor Constantine and finally admit that the only way to save the Church is to throw the institution itself under the bus.

Trouble is, the non-institutional early Church model has been repeatedly proclaimed a failure because, while it wonderfully works to spread the love of Christ, it never works to form a stable institution — the same ‘highly stable and successful’ institution that is currently killing the Church.

Irony…

Cal

That’s the format for today, along with communion, including participating in foot-washing. The whole thing makes our skin crawl. Good thing it’s Mother’s Day & we’re heading outta town to see family…excellent excuse..

Yet, I’ve worked with a number of couples that lived together without having sex for years — and then married.

They actually ended up worse off as what they solidified was, and largely remained, sexless.

I know — but, given Google’s down-ranking of all non-mobile-ready sites, I can’t write something of that complexity until I completely reboot this entire website and two sub-domains.

Cal

“What we told our daughters about love, sex and intimacy,” sounds like a very interesting title for the next post…

Cal

What I’ve been wondering about is what you would counsel celibate, single Christian women in terms of their own reproductive health while they are single? I’m working on an article or blog post about same.

Often very true — sadly…

Cal

Friendship, of course, could include (with much gentleness, fear and trepidation) the risk of sitting down and speaking into that person’s dysfunction and damage with the clear message that he or she needs help — therapy could be part of such.

More often then not though, comments about such are just used as a weapon.

The spirit and the degree of relational investment/compassion from the source does play a critical role here…

Cal

Although I do wonder if the authors of any of those studies referenced in the article live in a drafty house & are from the parts of Canada where it can hit -40 plus with the windchill.

Question, though Cal re this “In bad relationships, it’s, ‘You’re defective, and you need therapy.'”

Does those sorts of comments ^^ also define a bad friendship?