Wednesday's News & Ideas
Gone to the dogs: LA church starts pet service
NPR: A Los Angeles pastor offers a 30-minute service for dogs, including canine prayers and an offering of dog treats. He hopes it will reinvigorate the church's connection with the community, provide solace to elderly members and attract new worshippers.
Church missions target New England
Associated Press: The place where America's Christian faith laid its roots now is considered a mission field. In a Gallup poll this year, all six New England states were in the Top 10 least religious in the country.
Cloudy crystal ball
Commonweal: National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen’s book, “The Future Church,” identifies trends that will revolutionize the Catholic Church. This is important because Catholics “won’t just need hustle, they’ll need imagination,” he writes.
Amaze your friends with these nonprofit factoids
Blue Avocado blog: Did you know that individual giving in Kansas City, Mo., increased by 128 percent from 1997 to 2007. . . compared with the national average of 30 percent? Columnist Rick Cohen shares little-known facts about the non-profit sector.
When data and decisions collide
Seth Godin’s blog: Data mining and the proximity of the internet to most of what we do is changing the proximity of proof to decision. But what are you going to do when your hunches don't match the data that's now pouring in? asks marketing guru Seth Godin.
The Spark
License to wonder
The “facts, facts, facts” method of teaching science gives two false impressions, writes evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson in The New York Times. One is that science is about what is known. The other is the impression that scientific discovery progresses as an orderly, logical “creep”; that each new discovery points more or less unambiguously to the next. But in reality, much scientific work requires leaps of imagination and daring speculation.
Post new comment