Has Christianity "lost its place at the center of American life"?  Jay Hardwick muses on this quote from Tom Clegg and Warren Bird. He writes:

"This may sound heretical...I'm not sure that Christianity losing its place at the center of American life is all that bad . When the gospel spread most rapidly and effectively, the first 300 years after Jesus' resurrection, Christianity was an obscure, marginal, persecuted movement that was nowhere near the center of life in the Roman empire."

Read the whole post...

Has Christianity lost its place at the center of American life?
How did we lose that place? How do we change our ministry as a result of that?

Fermi recently uploaded a new video from Q!  Michael Luo, a reporter for the New York Times, speaks on faith and politics ...

What are the important political issues to you?

Church of the Highlands, in Birmingham, is mobilizing over 300 small groups to love on their city:

July 26th, 2008 is a very important day, because on the 26th over 300 One Prayer Small Groups will converge on the cities of Birmingham, Auburn, Tuscaloosa to touch as many lives as possible.

There is a flurry of activity as Small Groups are making plans and formulating strategies to reach out to their communities. It will be amazing to see the impact that we can make when we ask God to use us to touch the untouched and set out to be an expression of His love and grace to our world .

This is reminiscent of Craigs message - what would happen if the whole Church worked together as a force for the good of our "city" ?

I am working at my desk, and everyone starts walking by talking about a helicopter flying by the office...Chad Johnson tells me that Alan Bracken, one of our Catalyst group leaders and close friend of the Catalyst Team, is flying HIS helicopter near the office and wants to wave hi to the entire team.  WHAT THE HECK?!  They got so close!  We thought he was going to land in the parking lot but apparently that would have violated some sort of helicopter policy, I'll take their word for it...

Alan is one of the greatest guys we know...this random visit to the Catalyst office was part of a father/daughter date - Alan decided to surprise his younger daughter, Addison, with a father/daughter date to the Chateau Elan Resort, just north of Atlanta...via his helicopter.  Addison will remember this trip for some time!  I hope to one day be a father like Alan, who intentionally and genuinely loves his children.  Thanks for the fly by Alan! 

So, there's a random glimpse of today's happenings here at the Catalyst office...

LV