being hit on

**note: this post feels really disjointed.  I’ve been thinking about writing this for days now and it is just as scattered as my thoughts on this are. So bear with me.** Three times in the past week I have been “hit on” in our little town. Never mind the rings on my finger indicating my

BE the church

This morning we find ourselves in the midst of a pretty familiar story. It is a story of contrasts… the holy man on one hand and the sinful woman on the other. It is a story of grace… and a man who doesn’t think he needs any and a woman who is begging to be

The F.I.T. Challenge

For over a year now, Bishop Trimble has been talking about the F.I.T. Challenge.  And I think tonight, for the first time, I really understood how genius this very simple, simple concept is. F.I.T. stands for Focus, Invest, and Tell.  It is the overarching framework for ministry in Iowa. I don’t have the brochure and all

it causes me to tremble…

Day two of our annual conference has completed.  We have voted on exactly 7 items of legislation. And we have celebrated and praised and prayed and remembered and sung and danced and ate and hugged and sat and walked and listened. Some brief highlights for me so far: “Hi, I’m Fred.”  Our “priest” for the conference

Vocations?

Today at our county ministerial alliance we talked about the multiple vocations that people have in their lives.  The conversation sprang from a book we are reading together and a scene in which a Catholic priest approaches his bishop to let him know that he has fallen in love.  The priest both feels called to

cooking with mom

Alright, so these pictures are from ages ago.  And I wanted to post the recipes also, but it’s really late and I should be in bed and I’m going to post the pictures before I forget about them.  This was our pre-late-family-christmas bake fest.

Plug into these resources

I have a few go-to websites and resources for church work. And I thought I’d share and encourage you to list your own in the comments! (These come in no particular order) 1) The Text This Week (http://www.textweek.com/):  This is a lectionary resource that has a wonderful compilation of prayers, commentaries, articles, music, and ponderings from

full of weeds

A week and a half ago I found about five hours to prepare and plant my vegetable garden.  The spot was mostly cleared – we had burned leaves on the garden in the fall and so there was very little growth of weeds in the spot in the meantime.  I did some careful tilling with