Photo: 9 month old girl crying, labeled “[girl’s name] Social Emotional” This was in a stack of old materials sent home from A.’s daycare. It is a terrible looking picture. It is also really out of character for A., who is quite social and a very charming baby. From the photo’s time stamp, I, as parent, know that A. was suffering from RSV and related … Continue reading I Don’t Give a D*mn ‘Bout My Bad Reputation
REI voluntarily audits its practices every year to measure their proficiency in areas of “Community”, “Sustainable Operations”, and “Workplace”. They call this Stewardship. As a co-op, REI is accountable to more than just ‘shareholders’. Each major category has an overall goal (under “Workplace” REI states a goal of being “a nationally recognized top employer”). You can read the 2010 audit right here. I’m an REI … Continue reading How Non-Churches do Stewardship
Note: This series on The Church as it is presented in Acts seeks to: (A) examine the character and praxis of the first church, (B) apply lessons from the first church to the contemporary church and (C) gain a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between discipleship, church life and leadership. This examination is inspired by the many church leaders who espouse the “Acts 2 … Continue reading The Acts 1 Church
The Joy of Teaching I have really begun to flourish in teaching ministry. Much of the credit belongs to engaged students. Also, I am teaching topics that I am interested in (a class on Prayer using Richard Foster’s Prayer and a class on Genesis, which I designed myself). Early on in my ministry, I got pegged as an intellectual, which makes me laugh. I really … Continue reading Trust Me…I Went to Seminary
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. (Eccl. 1:9) Why I Missed the Leadership Summit I didn’t make the Leadership Summit. I wrote it down on my calendar, set my phone to go bezerk at the right time and even thought about getting close to wi-fi (which does not exist in … Continue reading The Best Way to Save the Church is to Keep Doing What We’ve Always Done
We could digitize and codify baptismal records. That way, only certified Christians can use this ‘Christians-only’ internet. We can establish standards for when someone backslides…kind of like points on your driver’s license. Accumulate enough points and one has to exit the ‘online universal church’ and perform penance to be allowed back in. We can anoint online priests to hear confessions and pronounce absolution for said … Continue reading We Need a Christians-Only Internet
Note: I have a file of things that I have written that never made it to their original destination. Usually, these are impassioned defenses of something I believe, in which I find my own statements too strong. Every now and then, I will go through this file and read these things. In January, as I am reorganizing my files, I came across something I wrote that I wanted to … Continue reading I Love the UMC
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for inhim all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he … Continue reading On the 7th Day of Christmas
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