Pastor turns heads by blending tradition and irreverence

From Denver-

Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber is a dichotomy wrapped in a paradox covered in tattoos.

Creation, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost — practically the entire liturgical year — unfurl in technicolor ink from her shoulder to her wrist.

That's just her left arm. Mary Magdalene and Lazarus rising from the dead are on the long right arm of this 6-foot-1 Christian billboard.

The 42-year-old came to Jesus later in life but then pursued a vocation in Christ full throttle. In a state where Focus on the Family and other strands of evangelical Christianity have long grabbed most headlines, a progressive Lutheran is now stealing the marquee.

On the strength of her preaching, Bolz-Weber received the invitation to sermonize Sunday at Easter sunrise services for roughly 10,000 people at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

In the few years since ordination in late 2008, she has become famous within her denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and achieved international acclaim.

She has a wide audience for her sermons and blogs, touted by the likes of progressive Christianity torch-bearer Jim Wallis. Her blog is under the heading "Sarcastic Lutheran: The cranky spirituality of a postmodern Gal. Emerging church ala Luther."

Read more:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17912633

Rise of Episcopal Village

From Religion Dispatches-

While the media has greatly exaggerated the death of the Episcopal church, they also fail to report on the rise of Anglicans, Catholic and other mainline church leaders, who are rethinking how they “do church.” The reasons for this shift in thinking are myriad and have only intensified since 2008 when a number of studies indicated that for the first time in US history, less than 50 percent of Americans classified themselves as “Christian.”


Such shifts in church decline have been documented in the Church of England (UK) for decades. As reported by the Rev. Steve Hollinghurst, Researcher in Evangelism to Post-Christian Culture, the Sheffield Centre, Children’s Sunday school attendance, for instance, has drastically plunged over the past century, dropping from 80 percent at the start of the century to 12 percent.

In an article I penned for Yale Divinity School’s Reflections magazine, I observed that explorations of alternative worship/emerging church culture have been transpiring over in the UK for decades. In 2004, the Church of England responded to this spirit by launching “Fresh Expressions of Church” in 2004. This initiative—which now includes an unprecedented partnership with the Methodist Church—seeks to encourage and recognize new Christian communities that attract those who are not members of a traditional church. By 2008, the Church of England established a formal means of recognizing new forms of church that do not fit within the existing parish system.

More here-

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/editorial/2623/rise_of_episcopal_village_/