The study by Willow Creek was been years in the making but only splashed across the blogosphere with its sensational headlines late last year. (Read: "Mind-Blowing!" - "Painful!" - "Revolutionary!") I'm not sure why CT is still doing stories on it at this late date except that their publishing schedule is generally 3-6 months out. (I first heard about the Reveal study in

This is my pre-published version of an article I wrote for Christianity Today International's Resources department. It is part of a larger downloadable study exploring Church rental issues. Here, with the help of a few friends, I consider the advantages and disadvantages of renting worship space.

The urban landscape is becoming increasingly crowded — and expensive. While churches have been moving out of the city to the suburbs, the cites have been growing. The North American Misssion Board reports that nearly 6 out of 10 Americans live in the 50 largest cities. And while establishing a new congregation in a populous city context poses many challenges, the lack of affordable space for church property is one of the most daunting. Purchasing facilities for worship in most large cities, especially for a church plant, is often impossible.

Articles

As I have mentioned in various posts throughout this weblog, I have been a proud employee of Christianity Today International for some time now. After serving as the first webmaster for the General Council of the Assemblies of God and a brief stint as a self-employed consultant, I was invited to join CTI's staff by Vice-President of R&D, John LaRue.

That was in the late-summer of 1999. I already had a relationship with CTI by then because when the A/G first decided to go online in 1995, we did it through CTI's America Online content-provider area, "Christianity Today Online." In order for the A/G to provide content on AOL via CTI, I was sent to the CT offices in Carol Stream to learn how to use the AOL "Rainmaker" system for content-management. (What a headache that system was!) As it turned out, only a few of us outside content providers ever took advantage of the training CTI provided after returning home, and that apparently made me noteworthy in CTI's eyes. So, when Judy Gill, office manager for the content production team at that time, found out that I was no longer working for HQ, she prevailed upon John LaRue to find a way for me to come work on staff in an official capacity.

In the spirit of my PneumaBlogs page, I’ve added another compilation of blog links to official Christianity Today blogs, links to unofficial personal CTI blogs, and links to ex-employees and affiliated CTI blogs. I hope you enjoy it. This is not an official list, it is not approved my employer, nor are all the links on this page representative of CTI opinion.

[tags]BlogRodent, Christianity-Today, christianitytoday, CTI, Christianity-Today-International, blogs, bloggers, godblogs, writers, Christianity, Evangelical[/tags]