The Rise of the ‘Umms’

As the oft-quoted poet Robert Frost mused, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Home is a tremendously weighty word—filled with smells and sounds and memories of pain and hope.

Home is also a golden thread weaved throughout the biblical narrative. As theologian Douglas Meeks comments in his book God the Eco

People end up far from church for lots of reasons, as the nones and dones demonstrate—but the umms represent yet another distinct group worth talking about. I would argue that many of those who have distanced themselves from church attendance, both in-person and online, might be described as umms.

Umms are a different category altogether, and the on

Although my wife and I have not been part of a formal church for the last few months, we still gather with friends every Monday night to eat, pray, and meditate on Scripture. We have a loose collection of friends with whom we fast every Wednesday. A small group of mentors have joined us on a Zoom call once a month to pray for our future.

None of the

Each Sunday I awake with a longing to gather around song, Scripture, and sacrament. Most of those mornings my wife and I walk to the nursing home to celebrate the Eucharist with a faithful but forgotten few.

This year my wife and I want to plant a church in Chicagoland, but many weeks I am left wondering, Where do we fit in?

Recently, I was lamenting

Disoriented: Over the last two years, these folks became new parents or had to move back in with their parents. Some lost their jobs and are looking for employment, while others have changed jobs and are still adjusting to a new vocational calling. The helter-skelter rhythms of the pandemic have upset the stability of their lives, which the church

One of the many reasons my wife and I want to plant a church is because it is the very place to foster such virtues and practices! The church gathers to announce that even in the midst of feeling disoriented, demotivated, discouraged, and disembodied, God has not abandoned us.

In a season that is marked by so much death and distance, we confess our