An important insight about church planting as evangelism among the America's shifting population...
"Today's church plants often target immigrants, which means adjusting church traditions to diverse ethnic cultures. "Any denomination that has an aggressive church-planting program and doesn't have a bias toward the white community will be largely ethnic," says David Ripley, who leads ethnic ministries at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois. "If we are challenging people to reach their neighbors, the reality is that the neighborhood is changing." As an example, he notes that 25 languages are spoken at Wheaton North High School, formerly dominated by WASP students".
For more insights read the entire Christianity Today article
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Paul Hiebert...An amazing life!
Paul Gordon Hiebert, Distinguished Professor of Mission and Anthropology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, arguably the world's leading missiological anthropologist, died on March 11 of cancer. He was 74.
Paul combined attributes not easily combined: anthropologically—and theologically—informed scholarship and a passion for God's global missionary purposes. The story of how Paul fruitfully merged these commitments is worth telling.
Read the entire article here
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Francis Bacon on Methods...
"If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must
expect to employ methods never before attempted".
expect to employ methods never before attempted".
Monday, September 17, 2007
Auditoire de Calvin
This was the place in Geneva where Calvin began expounding Reformed Theology in 1536. It was also used by the reformer John Knox, during his exile there in the 1550’s. Here Knox ministered to an English-speaking refugee congregation and developed many of the ideas that were to be influential in the Scottish Reformation. Later, it became a place used by numerous Protestant refugee groups including Italian Waldensians, Dutch Reformed and Scottish Presbyterians. Will we be able to re-discover this multi-cultural /multi-lingual legacy of our Reformed identity?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Census Data: Diversity in the US
Number of Immigrants Hits Record 37.5M- By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English, according to new Census data that illustrate the wide-ranging effects of immigration.
The number of immigrants nationwide reached an all-time high of 37.5 million in 2006, affecting incomes and education levels in many cities across the country. But the effects have not been uniform.
In most states, immigrants have added to the number of those lacking a high-school diploma, with almost half of those from Latin America falling into that category.
However, at the other end of the education spectrum, Asian immigrants are raising average education levels in many states, with nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree.
"There is no one-size-fits-all policy that you could apply for all immigrant groups," said Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau. "I think most of the attention has been on low-skilled workers coming from Mexico. But we have 10 million immigrants from Asia, a number that's growing."
The Census Bureau on Wednesday released a host of demographic data about the nation, including statistics on immigration, housing, education and employment.
The data come from the American Community Survey, an annual survey of 3 million households that has replaced the Census Bureau's long-form questionnaire from the once-a-decade census. It does not distinguish between illegal immigrants and those who are in the U.S. legally.
Mather analyzed the differences in education levels among immigrants from Asia and those from Latin America. Together, the groups account for about 80 percent of all immigrants.
About 48 percent of Asian immigrants held at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 11 percent of immigrants from Latin America. Among people born in the U.S., about 27 percent were college graduates.
"Driving this are people coming from China and India," Mather said. "They are either coming with a bachelor's degree, or they are coming with visas and getting degrees once they arrive."
At the other end of the spectrum, 47 percent of adult immigrants from Latin America lacked a high school diploma, compared with 16 percent of Asian immigrants and 13 percent of people born in the U.S.
Those numbers are fueling overall increases in the number of high-school dropouts in four states: Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Texas, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
"It used to be the poor southern states that had low levels of education and income. Now it is the high-immigration states as well," Frey said. "But that isn't to say that the second or third generation won't do better, because they will," he added. "There is upward mobility."
Among the other highlights from the 2006 data released by the Census Bureau:
_Massachusetts led all states in college graduates, with 37 percent of adults 25 and older holding at least a bachelor's degree. West Virginia came in last with 16.5 percent.
_Mississippi led all states in high-school dropouts, with 22.1 percent of adults 25 and older not graduating from high school. Minnesota was at the other end, with only 9.3 percent.
_California led the nation in immigrants, at 27 percent of the state's population, and in people who spoke a foreign language at home, at 43 percent.
_West Virginia had the smallest share of immigrants, at 1.2 percent. It also had the smallest share of people speaking a foreign language at home, at 2.3 percent.
_New York residents had the longest average commuting time to work at nearly 31 minutes, while North Dakota had the shortest, at 15.5 minutes.
_More Americans are working later in life. In 2006, 23.2 percent of people age 65 to 74 were still in the labor force _either working or looking for work — up from 19.6 percent in 2000.
_Fewer households consist of a married couple with children — 21.6 percent in 2006, down from 23.5 percent in 2000.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English, according to new Census data that illustrate the wide-ranging effects of immigration.
The number of immigrants nationwide reached an all-time high of 37.5 million in 2006, affecting incomes and education levels in many cities across the country. But the effects have not been uniform.
In most states, immigrants have added to the number of those lacking a high-school diploma, with almost half of those from Latin America falling into that category.
However, at the other end of the education spectrum, Asian immigrants are raising average education levels in many states, with nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree.
"There is no one-size-fits-all policy that you could apply for all immigrant groups," said Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau. "I think most of the attention has been on low-skilled workers coming from Mexico. But we have 10 million immigrants from Asia, a number that's growing."
The Census Bureau on Wednesday released a host of demographic data about the nation, including statistics on immigration, housing, education and employment.
The data come from the American Community Survey, an annual survey of 3 million households that has replaced the Census Bureau's long-form questionnaire from the once-a-decade census. It does not distinguish between illegal immigrants and those who are in the U.S. legally.
Mather analyzed the differences in education levels among immigrants from Asia and those from Latin America. Together, the groups account for about 80 percent of all immigrants.
About 48 percent of Asian immigrants held at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 11 percent of immigrants from Latin America. Among people born in the U.S., about 27 percent were college graduates.
"Driving this are people coming from China and India," Mather said. "They are either coming with a bachelor's degree, or they are coming with visas and getting degrees once they arrive."
At the other end of the spectrum, 47 percent of adult immigrants from Latin America lacked a high school diploma, compared with 16 percent of Asian immigrants and 13 percent of people born in the U.S.
Those numbers are fueling overall increases in the number of high-school dropouts in four states: Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Texas, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
"It used to be the poor southern states that had low levels of education and income. Now it is the high-immigration states as well," Frey said. "But that isn't to say that the second or third generation won't do better, because they will," he added. "There is upward mobility."
Among the other highlights from the 2006 data released by the Census Bureau:
_Massachusetts led all states in college graduates, with 37 percent of adults 25 and older holding at least a bachelor's degree. West Virginia came in last with 16.5 percent.
_Mississippi led all states in high-school dropouts, with 22.1 percent of adults 25 and older not graduating from high school. Minnesota was at the other end, with only 9.3 percent.
_California led the nation in immigrants, at 27 percent of the state's population, and in people who spoke a foreign language at home, at 43 percent.
_West Virginia had the smallest share of immigrants, at 1.2 percent. It also had the smallest share of people speaking a foreign language at home, at 2.3 percent.
_New York residents had the longest average commuting time to work at nearly 31 minutes, while North Dakota had the shortest, at 15.5 minutes.
_More Americans are working later in life. In 2006, 23.2 percent of people age 65 to 74 were still in the labor force _either working or looking for work — up from 19.6 percent in 2000.
_Fewer households consist of a married couple with children — 21.6 percent in 2006, down from 23.5 percent in 2000.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
What Does the Media Mean by "Presbyterian"
This is a Colorado journalist's attempt to answer that question...
A look at Presbyterian alphabet soup and what it means.
To follow Presbyterian news updates, outsiders need to learn a few key facts.
The Presbyterian Church in America is not the same thing as the American Presbyterian Church. Also, Orthodox Presbyterians are not to be confused with Bible Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Associate Reformed Presbyterians or Evangelical Presbyterians.
This Presbyterian alphabet soup became less complicated in 1983, when the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. joined with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., the so-called Southern branch. This created the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which today has about 2.3 million members.
Is that clear? If so, take a deep breath because Presbyterian affairs are about to get more complicated as new divisions and unions reshape the churches that trace their roots to John Calvin and his Reformed branch of Protestantism.
Read the daily camera article
A look at Presbyterian alphabet soup and what it means.
To follow Presbyterian news updates, outsiders need to learn a few key facts.
The Presbyterian Church in America is not the same thing as the American Presbyterian Church. Also, Orthodox Presbyterians are not to be confused with Bible Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Associate Reformed Presbyterians or Evangelical Presbyterians.
This Presbyterian alphabet soup became less complicated in 1983, when the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. joined with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., the so-called Southern branch. This created the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which today has about 2.3 million members.
Is that clear? If so, take a deep breath because Presbyterian affairs are about to get more complicated as new divisions and unions reshape the churches that trace their roots to John Calvin and his Reformed branch of Protestantism.
Read the daily camera article
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