Rabbi Simkha Weintraub is a social worker and director of the National Center for Jewish Healing in New York, N.Y. He co-edited a publication by the center titled Guide Me Along the Way: A Jewish Spiritual Companion for Surgery. He is also the editor of Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders Unfold the Strength and Solace in […]

Aubrey M. Malphurs, senior professor of leadership pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary. He wrote Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide for New Churches and Those Desiring Renewal (Baker Books, 2004).

Matt Jones is director of new church development for North Alabama Conference for the United Methodist Church.

Penny Long Marler is a professor of religion at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., with interests in the relationship between church and society and religious change. She has written about measuring growth in church attendance.

Read the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal.

Prayer services and talk of religious values are common on some teams. Read a Sept. 18, 2005, Washington Post story about a ministry called Baseball Chapel and the practice of players praying before games.

Some baseball teams – including the Colorado Rockies and Atlanta Braves – have held “Faith Days,” in which players share their Christian faith with fans after the final out. It’s optional – fans buy a separate ticket for the “Faith Day” event after the game. But post-game Christian fellowship has become a big money-maker in the minor […]

Read a Dec. 29, 2006, article in the Jewish Forward about drumming in Jewish congregations.

Read a story by Joan Huyser-Honig about one Lutheran congregation’s decision to use African drums in worship. The article is posted by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.