Faith Formation

How to Use Photos to Spark Worship Conversations

Whether you want to go simple or elaborate with these photo ideas, you can follow three steps to get people talking about worship and faithful living.

June 6, 2014
Visualizing Worship: Sparking conversations about worship and life

Two ideas borrowed from visual sociology researchers—photo elicitation and photovoice—are helping Christians and congregations picture their lived experiences with God.

June 6, 2014
Roman Williams on Peeling Back Layers of Meaning in Church Life

Roman Williams is a former pastor and church planter who now teaches sociology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He specializes in using visual methods to research the sociology of religion.

June 5, 2014

The Wardrobe of Easter: Gratitude

To be human is to be aware that life—one’s own life—is a sheer and undeserved gift from God. It is to revel and delight in its giftedness and to return thanks to the Giver. When the Giver hears an echo of gratitude, the circle becomes complete. Thus gratitude is an essential feature of living up to what God intended for his humans creatures when he made them.

April 11, 2014 | 5 min read
The Wardrobe of Easter: White-Hot with Purpose

St. Paul calls followers of Jesus Christ who have been resurrected with him to live far better. They must be well-ordered in their priorities and white-hot in their motivation.

April 5, 2014 | 4 min read

Cultivating Congregational Hospitality

An exploration of some ways that Christian congregations, depending upon the Spirit’s empowering presence, can become generous, welcoming places for tired, thirsty travelers, both guest and host alike, to refresh and bring blessing to one another and thus serve as signposts of the Gospel.

March 4, 2014
Show, Don't Tell: Keeping Sermons Vivid

Throughout the average week people talk about their lives and their families and their work through stories about whosaid what, how a certain event came about, and what something looked like and felt like when it happened. But too oftenon Sundays preachers present sermons that are short on vivid stories and long on description and the doling out of facts.In this workshop those who preach sermons and those who listen to sermons will explore both why vividness in sermons is vital and some ideas on how to make this happen in sermons as well.

March 4, 2014

Deepening a Congregation’s Ability to Talk about Worship, Pt. 1

We will explore what we can learn from the challenges and gifts of two churches of the recent past, Christ Temple in Jim Crow racism-laced Jackson, Mississippi, and the Anaheim Vineyard Fellowship in the late 1970s.

February 20, 2014