By Jana Riess, RNS senior columnist A couple of decades ago, when young adults began showing their dissatisfaction with organized religion by voting with their feet, it was fashionable for pundits to say this was happening because those religions weren’t … More →

July 16, 2018

Church by the Glades is a church located in suburban South Florida that caters to a 21st century audience. From their signature hash tag (#NoPerfectPeopleAllowed) to their impressive social media reach (nearly 15,000 Instagram followers) to their rock-concert inspired performances, … More →

June 19, 2018

The sisters don’t go out and try to fix the society,” says seminarian Peter Ludwig. “They really embrace the culture that they’re in, find people, the absolute poorest of the poor. It’s what’s so different about Mother Teresa. She doesn’t go and try to fix all the problems in the world. She goes out to love, to bring love into the problems of the world.” More →

February 10, 2017

“We’re going back to where it all began,” says Fr. Columba Stewart, a scholar of monasticism and a Benedictine monk at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, “with a variety of models of Christian ascetic life, and by ascetic I just mean disciplined. That’s what people are discovering, and they’re figuring out ways they can live as individuals, as families, as loose associations of friends who find this particular path to be helpful, sustaining, and nourishing to them.” More →

January 27, 2017

His movie “Silence,” says director Martin Scorsese, “is the struggle for the very essence of faith, stripping away everything else around it. You have to find a relationship with Jesus,” says Scorsese, “with yourself, really, because that’s the one you face.” More →

January 27, 2017

“Hurting people don’t need to hear the gospel,” says Chef Gary LeBlanc. “They need to see the gospel.” More →

December 16, 2016

“When we sing to a patient, we are sending them love, we are wishing them well on their journey, we are saying we’re all in this together…We are learning from them how to do this thing called dying,” says Sarah Stott, a member of the Threshold Choir in Washington, DC. 
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December 16, 2016

“Carols and hymns are amazingly succinct theological statements,” says Eileen Guenther, professor of church history at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. “There is more theology in a few words of poetry than you can possibly imagine. You can have a whole sermon in four lines.” More →

December 2, 2016

“This world is filled with so many problems you almost don’t know where to start. When you gather a bunch of people together there’s strength, and there’s encouragement in that…Instead of hearing a sermon, they come here and be the sermon,” says Grace Community Church senior pastor John Slye. More →

December 2, 2016

“We’ve got to protect our congregation and ourselves,” says David Lee, a Presbyterian church deacon. But “how do you really do that if someone enters our facility with intent to do harm? It’s not clear how do we go about doing things.” More →

November 23, 2016