I am definately a cut and paste liturgical writer. I don’t have the time and energy most days to do the good hard creative work it takes to listen for God speaking and to craft liturgy. And there are other people out there who do it so much better than I do! There are a…
The Body of Christ
we are the church
Why we are singing Christmas carols this Advent…
There have been a number of interesting conversations going on around how we keep Advent and Christmas. Taylor Burton-Edwards has suggested that what we actually experience is something more like Admastime… leaving the “vent” and the “Christ” out of it completely. In the time that I have known what Advent was… and I have to…
running low on the compassion reserves
One of the reasons I have been avoiding blogging lately is because I have a lot of things I would love to write about, but I can’t. A couple are topics and discussions that are confidential on a professional level. Some are just things that hit too close to home for myself and I’m not willing/able…
Judicial Retention and the Trust Clause of the UMC
This week in Iowa, three Supreme Court Justices were voted out of office. And I’m a little upset about it. A huge part of my frustration comes from the fact that they were voted out because of a homophobic reaction to one decision they made during the course of their tenures. In a unanimous ruling…
Being Honest about Weakness
Like any one of the rest of us, I have been blessed with particular gifts. I’m lucky enough to have answered a calling that uses those gifts almost every single day. I’m grateful for the opportunities that I have to serve and to put the skills God gave me to use. But like any one…
pause button
I know, its been a while since I posted last. I have five posts lined up in the queue waiting to go, but I haven’t had time to work on them. The next installment of the “Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa” is what is holding everything up. One book needs to be read…
Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 3
In this installment, I want to talk about some of the “best practices” that I see coming out of emerging, missional, and postmodern churches. Some of these practices are mentioned in Diana Butler Bass’ book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, but they also come from Kester Brewin’s, Signs of Emergence. A few of the “best…
Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 2
So, the first thing I want to tackle is some semblance of a definition. What on earth are we talking about when we say “postmodern” and “emergent.” The simple answer is that there isn’t a simple answer. In The Emerging Church, Dan Kimball describes the post modern world as: An emerging and developing worldview and culture pursuing…