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Asking his congregation to get permanent tattoos as a part of their Lenten observances may be one of the craziest things Ecclesia pastor Chris Seay has done at his artsy, pop-culture-savvy Montrose church. Seay and Ecclesia's artist-in-residence, Scott Erickson, initially hoped to find 10 people to get inked with designs representing the Stations of the Cross, 10 moments that illustrate the story of Jesus' death. The idea wasn't so crazy to the Ecclesia community, because about 50 of them answered Seay's call and have been tattooed with Erickson's custom-designed images of birds, hands, roses, trees and short phrases written in...

NewSpring Church, a five campus megachurch in Anderson, S.C., is canceling its Sunday night services due to the Super Bowl this weekend. Lead Pastor Perry Noble explained the reason in his blog. "I've been in church work for over 20 years and the one thing I can say is that attendance on Super Bowl Sunday night in church has always been awful! (and…the people who are there are pretending to be looking at youversion on their phone…but they are really checking the score of the game!)," he wrote. Noble said the church has always tried to compete with the Super...

Pastor and Wife Preach Married Sex With 24-Hour 'Bed-In' By Lindy Royce-Bartlett (CNN) – A pastor encouraging his congregation to have sex? It may sound unlikely, but it’s what one prominent Texas pastor is doing this weekend, with a 24 hour rooftop “bed-in” with his wife. To encourage members of his congregation and others to take part in what he calls a “sexperiment,” Dallas pastor Ed Young and his wife Lisa began staging a "bed-in" on Friday morning, laying in a bed on the roof of their Texas church for 24 hours. They say they want to illustrate that sex...

For a budding church in Flushing, your Sunday best will be a flannel shirt and skinny jeans. The Rev. Gage Jung, 37, is building an artsy flock for a brand-new, nondenominational congregation called the Hipster Church. His eclectic group of followers embody the counterculture mission statement - "This ain't your mama's church." "We're not trying to make a church like the one your parents went to. We're trying to make a church for our generation," said Jung, a self-proclaimed hipster. Jung was ordained a minister 10 years ago. The former lead pastor at the United Generations Church in Brooklyn said...

What does pole dancing have to do with Jesus Christ? One fitness studio in Texas says “everything” — which is why they have combined a unique workout routine with traditional worship on the second Sunday of every month. While pole dancing as a form of exercise has surged in popularity recently, “Pole Fitness for Jesus” invites female church-goers to slap on a pair of high heels and dance around a pole to upbeat Christian music. “I decided to take the part that I liked about [exotic dancing] and bring it here, but it’s so much fitness, I don’t teach women...

It’s not your father’s church by any stretch.The congregation is meeting in a warehouse in a neighborhood filled with trendy shops, cafes, and theaters. The pastor—sporting a faux hawk, tight t-shirt, and skinny jeans—is not averse to using salty language or discussing sex in explicit terms.  During the sermon, congregants text the pastor questions, which he might answer at the end. The music? Indie-rock.Welcome to the world of super-cool Christianity.In his new book, Hipster Christianity: Where Church and Cool Collide, Brett McCracken writes that evangelical churches are frantic to staunch the hemorrhage of young people leaving the church. But, he...

Yoga Classes, Dancing At Churches After Dark Meredith May May 30, 2010 Moonlight leads the way to Grace Cathedral's 1-ton bronze Doors of Paradise, and behind them dancers are swaying on the labyrinth as a reverend spins ephemeral techno music. A black-and-white art film flickers on the church wall. Couples quietly stroll the aisles in private conversation, while others play high-tech hide and seek, texting and sending photos from pew to pew. It's not your grandmother's church - it's Episco Disco, a monthly nondenominational gathering of people in their 20s and 30s designed to take the fear factor out of...

Holographic preachers are stirring another technology-gone-too-far debate among Christians. While the dust over beaming preachers on a video screen on multi-site campuses has somewhat settled, the new 3D tool is raising more questions and concerns among some believers. "Since so many of us in the west are convinced that entertaining pew fodder is critical to advancing 'the gospel' and that only a very few have the necessary gifts to preachertain – this will become the 'perfect' solution," Bill Kinnon, author of A Networked Conspiracy, Social Networks, The Church & the Power of Collective Intelligence, wrote in a recent blog post....

Several Central Jersey churches are ushering in Holy Week — the week preceding Easter Sunday — with a variety of new and unusual programs, some of which will tap into entertainment value to plug parishioners into enlightenment.Concerts, plays and dinners are just a few of the programs on the Christian worship menu this week, along with inventive ways of pursuing prayer.Celebrate Recovery, the biblical-based 12-step program at Community Christian Chapel, 211 Route 206, Hillsborough, will follow its 7 p.m. meeting on Good Friday with a concert by Nashville-based Christian rock act Kathleen Carnali……The combined United Church of Christ/Presbyterian Church USA...

When it comes to music played during church worship services, what is too loud? The question has triggered lawsuits in Waterford Township. In February, Timothy Carlson, a homeowner living across from Faith Baptist Church on Airport Road, filed a civil complaint against the church over loud band music generated last summer during praise and worship services. On Monday, the church responded by filing its own lawsuit in federal court against Waterford officials, alleging they violated the church's and band members' rights to free exercise of religion, free speech and freedom of association. The church - led by Pastor Jim Combs,...

Remember the old cliché, “Just when you think you’ve heard it all ...”? Well, you haven’t until you’ve heard this. I honestly thought the corporations that print today’s bibles had finally exhausted all of the possible “special editions.” I mean, what else is there after the “Left Handed, Near Sighted, Dyslexic with In-grown Toenail on the Right Big Toe, Giant Print, Red Letter Study Bible”? How about the “Poverty and Justice Bible”? The former is a joke; the latter is the real deal. But, frankly, I’m not sure which one is more ridiculous. The Bible Society of the United Kingdom...

Riverview Community Church in Holt Michigan has a unique ministry, brewing beer. "For anyone who likes talking about God with a quality brew in their hand." This ministry is called RiverBrew and it is billed as a place where believers can come “to worship God through appreciation of his creation”, "to be an environment welcoming of questions and discussion about faith and Jesus" and “to resume the Church’s historical role as making the finest beer in town,” as the group’s Web site puts it. I came across this article in the Lansing State Journal, which cannot be posted here at...

If Jesus walked the earth today, he'd drink fair-trade coffee and fill his Blackberry with non-church activities. So says Brian McLaren, author of more than a dozen books on modern Christianity - most recently Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope. In Everything Must Change, McLaren urges an examination of four critical issues: the environment, poverty, world peace and religious understanding. The book is titled Everything Must Change. Do you mean everything? Are we doing anything right?The laws of gravity and the speed of light are just fine. (laughs) But what I'm saying with "everything" is...

If you are older than 40 the name Benjamin Spock is more than familiar. It was Spock that told an entire generation of parents to take it easy, don’t discipline your children and allow them to express themselves. Discipline, he told us, would warp a child’s fragile ego. Millions followed this guru of child development and he remained unchallenged among child rearing professionals. However, before his death Dr. Spock made an amazing discovery: he was wrong. In fact, he said: We have reared a generation of brats. Parents aren't firm enough with their children for fear of losing their love...

This Saturday, some Episcopalians will be interfaithing all over downtown Seattle: Join us on October 13 for a day of learning and experiencing the ways in which movement becomes a form of worship. There will be opportunities to whirl with the Sufis, dance with liturgical dancer Betsey Beckman, to walk the labyrinth. While in Beantown, they'll be doing this all weekend: All are welcome at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston, Massachusetts on October 13 at 5:30 p.m. for the HipHopEMass ’Big Bean’ Celebration with the newest Hip Hop Bishop, ’Great Momma’ Gayle Harris. On October 14, 10 a.m. - 3...

MARIPOSA -- This is a mountain town where there's a Bible verse painted over a pizza-parlor door and a local politician keeps a cardboard cutout of John Wayne holding a Winchester rifle in his office as proof of fealty to the NRA. But a proposal to bring "Paintball for Jesus" to public land has some people riled. "I'm sorry, maybe I'm missing something in my upbringing as a Methodist, but Paintball for Jesus? God help us all. Seriously, this teaches bad habits of shooting each other," said Mariposa County Supervisor Brad Aborn, 71, the John Wayne fan who is a...

Eating Like Adam and Eve Diet-Conscious Christians Embrace 'Hallelujah Diet' as Way to Stay Healthy While Praising God By CHRIS BURY and ELY BROWN Sept. 28, 2007— The spry, slender 73-year-old man sprints up to the stage, pumps the air with his fist, and shouts out a robust, "Hallelujah!" The Rev. George Malkmus surveys the crowd of nearly 400 packed into a former college auditorium and finds that people have come from all over the country -- and even from Nigeria -- to hear him preach the Gospel. But it's not his approach to scripture that draws this crowd. It's...

Virtual communities are the new haven for believers coping with 21st century culture. Fri, Sep. 28, 2007 Posted: 12:48:16 PM EST Virtual communities are the new haven for believers coping with 21st century culture. Whether it's for confessions or a sense of support, today's believers are flocking to the Internet, where they discover thousands of others struggling as Christ followers as they are. "Our culture wants us to conform," said Ed Young, lead pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, in a sermon this past Sunday. "God wants us to be transformed." And transformation, the megachurch pastor indicated, begins with...

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — To many Roman Catholics, especially the older generations, it's inconceivable that online blathering could stand in for confession. "It would be like cheating!" said one woman at St. Mark, in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch. But for Ashley Iodice, a high-school senior in Weston, Fla., Internet absolution feels more natural than talking to a priest. Now a Baptist, Iodice grew up Catholic; she remembers confession as scary — and less than sincere. It's hard be honest about the depths of teenage depravity, she said, when you're talking to an elderly priest "who's committed his whole...

Religious-themed sex guides are flying off the shelves - some even give believers permission to enjoy a good romp. Richard Davies was reading The New York Times books section when he spotted a full-page advertisement for sex guides. A spokesman for Victoria-based online book retailer Abe Books, Mr. Davies wondered what kind of guides his customers were ordering, and ran a search of the company's database. "I knew there was demand for collectible erotica, things like The Pop-Up Kama Sutra," he said. "But we put together our bestselling list and, lo and behold, a Christian guide was No. 1." Of...