Defining Church

It’s been an exceptionally busy week. Here’s what I’ve been doing: I taught 3 Bible College classes I attended an EMCC pastor’s retreat (all day Tuesday and most of Wednesday) I drove 2.5 hours south, just to have an exploratory chat with someone about a PhD program. I slept away from home 2 nights I’m…

Currently, I’ve got a couple of Eugene Peterson books on my reading list.  The other day, while reading, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the art of spiritual direction, I was convicted. He writes: “But the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal.  It is not devotion but defection.  The adjective busy set as…

In my last post I talked about conflict.  Conflict’s best friend is change.  And change should be posted on the sign outside every church in transition.  Unfortunately, most churches bury conflict, avoid change and try to move through transition hastily, assuming the current trajectory is the ‘best’ one or the ‘right’ one. The reason can…

Recently, I’ve had a few of the hardest days of my year. At first I thought I was losing my mind: small comments seemed to irritate me, my heart felt strangely heavy, and I couldn’t focus on simple details. My counselor suggested that I might be experiencing the initial stages of burn out. So, I…

Since my spiritual formation class is so large (53 students) I’ve divided the class into groups so they can help each other. Each group will meet weekly at the end of class.  All semester, they will blog about their faith journeys. I’m hoping students will challenge one another to practice what they learn in class, especially…

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Ever since taking my position as director of worship and the arts, Christmas Eve has meant “month-long frenzied extravaganza.” Every year our church puts on a large scale community worship service on Christmas Eve. That means that we rehearse a handful of times the week before Christmas. This year, 3 major winter storms…