“We’ve had a stirring in our heart and spirit that God placed the church here for this time because of foreclosures, because of this new homelessness,” Senior Pastor David Uth said.

The congregation's proposed 2011 budget calls for nearly 25 percent of undesignated funds to go to missions -- up from 22 percent in 2010, on its way toward the pastor's vision of 50 percent -- and that doesn't include its seasonal missions giving.

The community will have several opportunities to help in this endeavor to donate to local food banks. The youths will be out in full force on Saturday, Feb. 5 between 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. to pick up non-perishable can goods from households.

Through December, the Rev. Talbot Davis' sermons were interspersed with videos from the International Justice Mission - which rescues victims of the slave trade and prosecutes the perpetrators - about children and their rescue from the slave trade. The church lobby was turned into an art gallery of pictures of freed children, accompanied by their stories. Children at Good Shepherd wrote letters to encourage people working in aftercare for child victims.

"I have no idea where we'll be ten years from now, whether we will be a 50-50 church," said Dean. If the goal causes them to look inward and give more, then it will be a success, he said.

I don’t generally mind Oprah most of the time, but this episode gets on my nerves every year. It’s great that she wants to give all this stuff away, but let’s be real: This is less about her generosity and more about making some advertisers very happy. The show is nothing more than one long advertisement for products and services. Since an Oprah endorsement translates to bigger sales, these providers are more than happy to give away products to the audience in exchange for that endorsement. It’s not Oprah that gives this stuff away, it’s the advertisers.

"I figured that if iTunes receives 10 million downloads daily and we need $250,000 to build the orphanage then we as a church can make that happen," Thomason told The Christian Post on Wednesday. The hip hop song, which speaks about plight of people in the war-torn country of Southern Sudan, debuted at No. 1 on the Christian and Gospel Music chart on iTunes. The single track is by Swoope and features music artists Lecrae, Tedashii and Jai.

Just as important, his passion (and God’s passion) for the poor and vulnerable comes through in a contagious way. Both those on fire for “social justice” and those suspicious of it will benefit from Keller’s latest.

Tim was kind enough to take a few moments out of his busy schedule to do an interview with me. My questions are in bold and Tim’s answers in regular type.

1. There will be greater Spanish church outreach… Closing the gap in education and economy is a role we see our church in providing a solution.

2. We see the generation that walked away from the faith they had as children returning in record numbers. They are led back to church by their own children’s need for faith.

3. Our music will be a fusion of hymns, contemporary, and culture diversity. We will invest heavily into the arts as a way of reaching unbelievers and giving expression of the faith of believers.

4. Social justice, the intimate and intense commitment to helping the poor, abused and addicted will be crucial in meeting our own church family needs, and extending the message of Christ’s love to the community.

5. The widening separation of “church and state” will leave a vacuum of moral guidance. Teaching and training of moral responsibility will be a huge role for all churches.

6. Spiritual development in a culture that by design or default has strayed from understanding its spiritual needs will be our greatest challenge. The recession has shown the vulnerability to materialism and the need to place the value of relationships as our most vital asset.

7. Technology will become our greatest tool. We intend to use every available means to engage and educate the ancient truths of yesterday into today.

8. The leadership of the Life Church will transition to a whole new generation.

9. We are linking to other local churches to “complete” rather than “compete” in our efforts to add value to our community.

10. Creating a culture of serving for the maturing “baby boomers.” … This generation will go from “me” to “we” as the most giving generation.

The 20th annual study by Empty Tomb Inc. reaffirmed a “long-term turning inward of congregations” exhibited by a dwindling share of church donations spent on benevolence and evangelism. It also found a dip in money given to churches during the 2008 recession, even while donations to religious organizations overall increased.

But like a supernova that explodes with light just before it dies, St. Mark's will end by sharing itself in an uncommonly generous way: Instead of selling off its chapel, school, parsonage and land, the congregation is giving everything to a start-up church, for free.

As our nation went through the early stages of the recession, I can remember the rapid decline of the housing market. During the slide, I was concerned to hear voices from academia, finance and government give the lion's share of the blame to the minority consumer for defaulting on loans for homes that they could not afford.

The conversation went as far as to suggest that church pastors contributed to the housing demise because they encouraged their parishioners to purchase homes.

Hipster evangelicals are expanding their consumption beyond the cloister to the coffee shops, and out of the mainline cinemas into hallowed movie houses where indie films play. This expansion of cultural consumption is a welcome development.