bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 ::

Blitzkrieg Blog. Hey! Ho! Let's go! Plowing through the blogs this morning like a Panzer division across the Maginot Line, here's what caught my eye (nothing in here about war, Nazism or skinheads, by the way; the blitzkrieg reference is merely a literary device):

More U.S. latinos are shifting from Catholicism to Protestant forms of Christianity, according to a new study. "It's democracy in America. People have choices. ... It runs all the way across from the voting booth to the churches we select," Olga Villa Parra, former executive director of the Midwest Hispanic Catholic Commission at the University of Notre Dame, said of the study's findings. My own father, the son of a Mexican mother and Basque-Mexican father, made the switch from nominal Catholicism to nominal Protestantism at a young age -- about as soon as he could get out of the orphanage run by the Sisters of St. Mary and out on his own. Growing up, I recall that ours was one of the few latino families to attend Protestant churches. Link via ChristianityToday's Weblog.

Even while stories like The New Capital of Evangelicalism focus on the influence of mega-churches, small churches still dominate the religious landscape in the United States. But the picture is not at all rosy. According to the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, released recently, "American worship is lopsided toward small congregations, fewer men in the pews, a once-a-week gathering and few newcomers at the service." Moreover, according to The Washington Times, "'Most worshippers are not involved in small groups in their congregation,' the study said. Also, 'in an entire year, most people did not invite even one person.' ... On the bright side, the report said it dispelled several myths about congregation life, such as that most worshippers are retirees or that congregations lack forces for change." Also linked from CT's Weblog.

Manna Cabana gets a makeover! Link via Chinaman's Hat.

A couple of days after the event, I present to you Mr. T's Mother's Day message (Flash required). Link via the always insightful Dead Yet Living.

Hey, you dumb mug, get your mitts off my blog before I stuff that mud-pipe down your mush. For lovers of hard-boiled detective fiction, this Glossary of Hardboiled Slang is a must. Link via Creative Slips.

Karen Ward likes the new CD from Switchfoot (Flash site) and suggests we buy it. You can listen to samples on the band's site before you shell out the bucks. Good stuff.

David Hopkins ponders whether Next-Wave is losing its edge. "I don't know if next-wave is really 'pushing the envelope' as much as it could," he writes. "We've become a little tame. Is there a way to create interesting discussion and light some fires? Can we find the point of disagreement and play along those lines? And can we do it, in a way that is genuine? Not upsetting people merely to watch them get angry. And can we get angry, while still listening?"

Perhaps we should just call him Lord Byron.

No daily deals at Jen's site. "I'm broke, so browsing around depresses me," she wrote last Friday.

Scripps-Howard's David Waters questions the purpose of a National Day of Prayer. "Isn't every day a day of prayer? So why do we want or need an official, government-sanctioned National Day of Prayer?" He says he was going to pray anyway, with or without the federal government's sanction. Link via Holy Weblog!

There's so much good stuff on Wolfgang Fernandez's blog that I can't even attempt to summarize. He's witnessing and partaking in some amazing God-work around the globe. I look forward to meeting this guy at Search Party 2002.

e-church.com has become a blog. Tim Bednar, who created e-church as an outreach of a Minneapolis church (see my review of e-church, Oct. 11, 1999), has apparently taken a new approach. "Established in 1997, e-church has been many things: continuing education tool for Sunday School classes, platform for my essays, vehicle for a church planting effort in Uptown Minneapolis, and recently a metablog for a global, English-speaking faith community. ... Now, e-church will become my Weblog and focus on my journey in Christianity. ... As a preview, I am going to write about love, work, culture, and society as my faith gets worked out in the midst of the world." Link via Eatonweb.

:: Andrew 09:09 + ::
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