I’ve spent a full year away from ministry and shifting into a new phase of life. I am still in a steep learning curve, but along the way I am always finding joy.
Continue reading “Reading and listening that is challenging me in this new year”Category: Church Life
So… this “Anglican thing”
This year has been spent in a cycle of spiritual rest and exploration. That cycle has taken us some interesting places. The big takeaway is a shift away from what I’ve known my whole life in one movement to step into another movement within the Body of Christ. For those interested, I write at some length about it HERE.
It would be great to have conversations over this for anyone having questions.
What the wilderness teaches us
The men’s Bible study I am a part of at my church is going through the Gospel of Matthew. We’re just getting started so I was reflecting on Matthew 3 this week. John the Baptist comes along and Matthew identifies him as the one crying out in the wilderness.
As we were discussing this Isaiah passage where Matthew draws from to identify John, I thought about the use of the wilderness throughout Scripture. Continue reading “What the wilderness teaches us”
The sign of Jonah
In Luke 11:29 people ask for yet another sign from Jesus. Too often we are asking for a sign and don’t know what we’re asking in that request. Continue reading “The sign of Jonah”
The self-righteous image
“I pastored a Southern Baptist church in southern Missouri, and there some people in that church whose whole identity, I think, was tied to a self-righteous image. I discovered quickly I couldn’t change things when folks were determined not to change. In time, though, I realized that all around the church was a sea of dying people. I made friends outside the church and found plenty of people who were receptive to me.” — Dallas Willard in Becoming Dallas Willard by Gary Moon
Is it time to quit the Church?
The past few weeks have been heavy news for the Church. For evangelicals… it’s been Willow Creek and the leadership failure of that megachurch. (Then there are those trying to cling to evangelical as “tribe” but the politics of it right now are a bad mess.)
For the Catholics, it was the grand jury findings in Pennsylvania, then another bombshell this week when Pope Francis himself was accused of hiding information on a pedophile within the Vatican. Continue reading “Is it time to quit the Church?”
Dealing with the sin of church leadership
Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep
and say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’” (Joel 2:17, ESV) Continue reading “Dealing with the sin of church leadership”
