by Kay Ahmed | Dec 5, 2019 | 21stCenturyReligion, ChurchChange, From Our Archives
This past January, the church I pastor, Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, had its own “come to Jesus” moment during our Annual Church Meeting. I had done my due diligence all year — studying the latest data regarding church growth trends and...
by Kay Ahmed | Nov 7, 2019 | 21stCenturyMinistry, 21stCenturyMission, Commentary
For people in ministry, one of the most frustrating phrases to hear from congregants and committees is, “But we’ve never done it that way before.” There is often a lot packed into that one sentence—fear (of risk, of failure), hesitation around trusting the pastoral...
by Kay Ahmed | Apr 4, 2019 | Featured Article
I don’t know why I stay. I was sixteen the first time I was warned my sexuality was incompatible with my salvation. I was eighteen when I watched Bishop Gene Robinson consecrated as the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church, his alb ill-fitting over the...
by Kay Ahmed | Mar 31, 2019 | From Our Archives
I decided to return to my old church for a visit. Readers of Bearings will recall that it’s been a while since I’ve crossed the threshold of the church that nurtured me through graduate school and the various ups and downs of life at that time. I’d been mulling a...
by social@thebtscenter.org | Mar 2, 2018 | 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturyMinistry, 21stCenturyMission, 21stCenturyReligion, 21stCenturySpirituality, Small Church Vitality
The articles in this month’s Bearings magazine, “Small Is the New Big,” illuminate questions raised by the realities of small church ministry. In them we read eyewitness accounts of the spiritual energy in churches described as “small”—small that is, when the metric...
