rick warren

Pastor Stuart Luce stepped out onto the altar at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Aberdeen with his clothes bulging from sacks of sugar he had stuffed into his shirt and pants. The church on Mt. Royal Avenue is starting the new year with a "multi-layer worship series" targeting not just the souls but the bodies of congregants.

On Sunday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will kick off its usual lackluster campaign called the Fortnight for Freedom in Baltimore. This defense of religious liberty campaign is about as disingenuous an effort as any carnival huckster could conjure. In true Orwellian style, the bishops beg for the freedom to discriminate against others, while all the while wrapping their campaign in the language of flag, freedom, religion and country.

A few years ago, the History Channel was best known to some as a punch line on HBO¿s ¿The Sopranos.¿ Remember mobster Tony Soprano sitting alone late at night in his New Jersey McMansion eating ice cream and watching World War II documentaries about Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill?

The decade-long process of turning the Church of the Nativity into a local leader in growing a modern church is recounted in a book written by Pastor Michael White and Tom Corcoran, associate to the pastor, entitled, "Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter."