This was incredibly powerful. Preaching through the prophets this summer, I’m continually struck by the demands for justice that are mandated for ALL of us who want to follow God. Care for the vulnerable, the orphans, the poor, the marginalized. The call to lay our power and prestige aside for another because it’s not…
Wheat & Tares
the church in the world: mission, justice, good news
I am NOT a prophet
In 1908, a mining disaster in Monogah, West Virginia claimed the lives of 361 men. 250 of those men were fathers and nearly one thousand children in the area were suddenly fatherless. And along comes Grace Golden Clayton, a Methodist, who had recently lost her own father. She felt a call to do something, to…
Changing A Child’s Story
One book at a time, we can change the narrative, change, the statistics, change some lives… My church heard the call issued by our conference Poverty Taskforce to make an impact on generational poverty through literacy. All year, some of us have volunteered as reading buddies at Hillis Elementary and we have worked since Christmas…
Hi, I’m your small group leader AKA why I’m voting for #rule44 #umcgc
I started my day at 7am with the Committee on Reference and when everyone else was done for the evening, I joined a group of 50+ folks for a three hour training session for a process we might not even choose to implement. I’m exhausted. It was a 14 hour day and I’m spent. So…
Tears, Comfort, and Old Hymns
This morning, our church choir shared some of the great hymns of the faith with our church in a cantata style celebration of music. Instead of our traditional Easter cantata, we picked some of our favorite hymns, our fearless leader researched their stories, and we presented a morning of lessons, messages and songs. And tears…
A Different Kind of Proof
A man named Bob Ebeling thought he was a loser. Mr. Ebeling was an engineer on the Challenger Space Shuttle and discovered that the O-ring seals in the rocket might not hold up in the cold temperatures of the 1986 launch. He and fellow engineers pleaded with NASA to stop the launch, but they decided…
Love, apologies, and prayer breakfasts
I sat in a room filled with hundreds of Christians and felt a little bit like an outsider. This was the second year I’ve attended the Iowa Prayer Breakfast… held every Maundy Thursday in Des Moines. It includes prayers for our state and leaders, music, and a keynote message. On the site, it clearly states…
Pastoral Persona
A while back, Verily put out an article: Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Post Something on Social Media The basic three questions are these: Is it useful? Is it truthful? Is it fruitful? I had shared the article with other pastors because I thought that the three questions raised in the article are…