This past Wednesday night I was leading our group through a process of meditation on scripture taken from a book on the topic by Avery Brooke. It’s a simple process that involves reading through the scripture three times during a 15 minute period, moving from a broad view of the text toward discerning a single […]
This afternoon, after a great church council planning retreat, I made my way to the local AT&T store to move into the world of smartphone ownership. This was an interesting exercise, for I was pretty locked into a contract, am pretty much okay with AT&T in my area, and so was evaluating solely on phone […]
For being the technopastor, I have been rather low tech in regards to my cell phone. Even now I haven’t made the jump to a smartphone due primarily to cost. I carry an IPod touch with me at all times as my PDA, but in the post Christmas price war, it seems time to make […]
Today represents the fiftieth New Year that I’ve experienced in my life, and I have to say that it doesn’t seem much different from what’s come before. Like most, I lean forward with anticipation that the coming year will be “better” than the past. And yet I also know that every generation somehow believes that […]
…Steve Earle sang one of the great Christmas songs in the past 25 years. Enjoy.
Our good friend John Meunier offered some great questions on how the data in the Call to Action report led to the conclusions of the Steering Committee in the comments of a recent post on this blog. I forwarded the questions to Neil Alexander of UMPH who was one of the leaders of the Call […]
John asks some great questions and I offered several thoughts on the nature of certainty in his comments. Carry on the conversation there, but I commend this to your reading. In the new Circuit Rider (thanks to Katie Z for the shout out), retired elder Willard "Buzz" Stevens writes with pain and passion about doubt […]
Dear Jay, As your current District Superintendent I write to confirm your new appointment to Old Hickory UMC in the Cumberland District for th 2010-11 conference year… So began the letter that I opened a few minutes ago, a letter that is not unexpected, but surreal in my current context of coordinating flood relief efforts […]
At this time last week, I was clueless… I had no concept of what was to come. At this time last week, life seemed complicated… Little did I know how simple it would become the next day. At this time last week, I was a simple United Methodist pastor… I had no concept that in […]
If you follow my Tweets or Facebook status updates, you probably know by now that I enjoy and appreciate Dan Dick‘s United Methodeviations blog. Dan is a former consultant and researcher for the General Board of Discipleship who has moved on to be the Director of Connectional Ministries of the Wisconsin Annual Conference, and regularly […]
There have been lots of comments on the Superbowl ads from last night, but the one that seems to have slipped through the cracks is the Cars.com ad. Part of the reason is that it was cute, but not side splitting. However, I liked it because my college roommate Jim’s son David played the part […]
I recently sat in a meeting where a congregation was thinking about their central mission focus for the coming year. The congregation had recognized that somewhere along the way it had become lax in reaching out and since their mission statement talked about the transformation of their community they recognized that they needed to identify […]
…and to all a good night.
One of the dangers we preacher folks tend to fall into when evaluating the ministries of our congregations is to focus on the metrics of participation, membership, and financial giving. There are good reasons for this, from denominational expectations around those numbers to the fact that these numbers have the most impact on our day […]
Everyone seems to be piling on the Titans, but here is my game plan for their future. After all, what have they got to lose?
A few years ago I had the bright idea of doing a regular podcast on United Methodist related stuff. I did around 20 or so until I ran out of steam, but my favorite was one featuring the head of the TWIT Network and former TechTV host Leo Laporte. Leo was kind enough to post […]
Recently there has been a lot of stir, especially in the progressive community, over the Metro Nashville School systems failure to provide adequate books for students at John Early Middle School. This has led to an NAACP led law suit, which has garnered much press. It also led to folks opposed to the MNPS rezoning […]
I am trying to put together a daily devotional guide for our congregation’s stewardship covenant month and am looking for some stories about people receiving gifts. If you have a few minutes, would you be willing to submit your short (a paragraph or two at most) story about receiving a gift? This could include the […]
I’m not sure when I first met Beth Luton. There is a sense that she’s always been around in my life, a prevenient presence that is comfortable from the beginning. Her family has been intertwined in my life for the past twenty years from the time I decided to visit the West Nashville United Methodist […]
only wonder understands