relationships and community on Nones

Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period, the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million—...

The United States retains a basic respect for religion though it may be following European trends: surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, ...

The absence of boundaries creates nonorder, and nonorder is not the end of exclusion but the end of life.

In Essentials Unity; In Non-Essentials Liberty; In All Things Charity

God of grace and truth, all-loving and all-holy: Give us the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ, and the will of Christ so that we may show the glory and goodness of Christ to the world: to neighbors...

It is nothing, then, that we can produce; it is nothing that we can do in ourselves. It is just this tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face-to-face with God.

Non-discipleship is the elephant in the church; it is not the many moral failures, financial abuses, or amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians. These are only the effects of ...

The Barna Research Group reports that in the United States about 10 million self-proclaimed, born-again Christians have not been to church in the last six months, apart from Christmas or Easter.

To be nice means to silence ourselves in some way, and in doing so, we compromise our authenticity and give up freedom to act and speak. On the other hand, niceness may facilitate the shedding of resp...

The idol of niceness refers to the ways we make ourselves pleasant, agreeable, acceptable, or likable in order to get something. We use niceness to achieve belonging or avoid conflict, but we also use...

There is a great sequence [in the Beatitudes]. Experimentally no man [or woman] enters into any of these, save in the order indicated.

Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

Two monologues do not make a dialogue.

Almighty God, whose Son had nowhere to lay his head: Grant that those who live alone may not be lonely in their solitude, but that, following in his steps, they may find fulfillment in loving you and ...

I sit in a bright-lit June meadow at the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. It is early afternoon, and I have been here since morning in what can only be described as an uneasy sol...

In this excerpt from Jay Y. Kim’s book, Analog Church , the author shares about an experience at a local restaurant after being convicted of his own smartphone use at home, keeping him from being p...

Dinner is a cacophonous exercise of holy sanctification.

A monk is a man who is separated from all and who is in harmony with all.

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior.

The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his o...

If we want to connect with people, we can be like the census taker who had driven many miles down a remote country road to reach a mountain cabin. As he pulled up, a woman sitting on the porch yelled ...

Nothing unites people as sharing the same affliction.

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community...Let him who is not in community beware of being alone...Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plu...

Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.

The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is baref...

When thou writes, promise me nothing, unless I read Jesus in it. When thou converses with me on religious themes, promise me nothing if I hear not Jesus’ voice. Jesus—melody to the ear, gladness to th...

Good Father, we thank you for inviting us to your table. You invite us to your heavenly feast, but we don’t show up to the party. Rather, we ignore your invitation, we get distracted by other work we ...

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

“Ned, I would love to stand here and talk with you—but I’m not going to.”

Whether young or old, Americans are feeling more isolated. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, about half of Americans have weekly interactions with their neighbors, which means ...