Still seeking?

I think we all want to live significant lives. The question for most of us is how. For people of religious faith they frequently turn to God, seeking his guidance and direction to answer that question. Kovach (1999) in his PhD dissertation proposed that at the deepest level “seeking to know the will of God may reflect a desire to be accountable to Christ with a profound concern to accomplish something significant for Christ and his kingdom” (p. 2). He argued that finding the will of God has been a preoccupation of evangelical Christians since the 1960s and cited a wealth of literature that offered guidance in finding guidance. When I quickly surveyed Bowker’s Global Books in Print (January 15,...

Read More

Virtual Church Part II

Interestingly, the topic of virtual church came up on Dr. Heidi Campbell's blog (see "There is no virtual ekkelsia (?)". Two Pastors associated with the emerging church movement have argued that there can be no virtual community by the very definition of community. I am somewhat inclined to agree except that there are people in cyberspace who are finding their church needs met online. I recommend Campbell's book "Exploring Religious Community Online" (Peter Lang, 2005) if you are curious about some people's online experiences. Does community require a physical presence? Is the growth of online churches a symptom of the failure of many real life churches to build authentic communities? Could...

Read More