Martin Shkreli, the man who raised prices on various life-saving drugs purely for profit, testified before Congress recently: What really struck me in this video, was the plea of Mr. Cummings. He lifted up the truth of the impact of Mr. Shkreli’s actions, but did not merely question or shame or condemn him. Instead, he…
Wheat & Tares
the church in the world: mission, justice, good news
Momentum for Life: Vision for Immanuel
God spoke: Write this! Write what you see! Write it out in big block letters so it can be read on the run! And when God gives a vision aids our momentum. It paints a picture of the future that drives us forward because we can’t wait to get there. God’s vision aches for…
Blogging as a form of Public Theology
I just spent the last couple of days in Washington, D.C. exploring what it means to be a public theologian. Over the last year, I have been part of the Lewis Center’s Community Leadership Fellows Program. We have gathered for three day sessions together at Wesley’s downtown campus in order to reflect upon the role…
Face-to-Face
There is a struggle and a tension I have with facebook. If I am going to be honest, it is one of my primary sources of news. It’s a place I get information and get informed and pass along the world to others. And so sometimes, I use it as a vehicle for naming realities…
Hopes and Fears
Awaiting the Already. As church, we are exploring this book, written by a pastor who served here in Iowa. And he invites us to look at the Christmas story through new lenses. Over four weeks, we pull apart each gospel: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, and explore what they have to tell us about how…
Praying for Peace in Honor of our Veterans
This is my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine; this is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine: but other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as…
Reproducing in the Church #NaBloPoMo
I was sitting at a conference with some friends and the speaker kept lifting up the decline in membership of the United Methodist Church. One of the reasons cited was United Methodists were having less children than we used to. And the four of us all stole a glance at one another. The speaker was…
The Wheat and the Tares on the Micro-Level (NaBloPoMo)
In September, Bishop Ken Carter visited the Iowa Annual Conference and helped us to have a holy and grace filled conversation about leadership, change, mission, and the elephant in the room: human sexuality and the lives of LGBT persons. One of the pieces I really appreciated is that he was careful to note that the macro…