I am a United Methodist Conference junkie. I love the debate and worship, interaction and holy conferencing. I love getting up to the microphone to speak. I love friendly amendments and the crazy insane process… at its best. I know there are times when it gets out of control and is painful and frustrating. There…
BIG words
This first exercise or engagement with our proposed strategic priorities for Iowa comes with a word image. I put the full document into a word cloud generator to see what we talk about the most and what that says about our work. For this post… the words that stand out: conference, communities, ministry, development, transform,…
Invitation to Conversation and Discernment
Hi folks, This year at our Iowa Annual Conference one of our major topics of discussion will be the vision, mission, and strategic priorities of our Iowa Conference. As part of getting people across the conference to think/pray/discern where we are heading with this document, I’m hoping YOU might think and write about the document…
Driving Behind a Trooper
I hopped on the interstate, fresh from an invigorating meeting, ready to put the pedal to the metal and get home. I had an hour and forty minute drive ahead of me, so with an energy drink and a bag of pretzels in my passenger seat I was prepared to settle in, set my cruise…
Dear "Sign Guy"…
As I drive north on 380 from home, there is a field right by the interstate that has a homespun billboard. For five years, I have been disappointed by the trite, sometimes offensive, and always partisan slogans that grace this sign. Maybe part of my disappointment is there is no opportunity for relationship or conversation.…
Light Still Shines…
In the last two weeks, I have been talking with a lot of folks across Iowa. I spent some time with clergy in Des Moines and then in Hampton at Laity Day. I preached in DeWitt and organized folks in Mount Pleasant. I worked with folks in Tama. And I’ve made phone calls to at…
Coffee making ladies…
Tonight I had a presentation scheduled in Tama/Toledo. These two little towns are so close I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. And based on my introductory sentence, you might guess that I wasn’t exactly sure which one I was supposed to be in! You see, many little towns in Iowa still…
Praying on an airplane
Friday I took an early morning flight home. I had been in Nashville for a few days to train some new field coordinators for Imagine No Malaria and get refreshed myself on the latest info. But that flight came early. My cab arrived at 4. I was done with socializing around 1. So… yeah, not…