I am so grateful to my elders and my church family for not only making a sabbatical possible, but for being so overwhelmingly supportive of us. I've never had the privilege of a sabbatical in almost 20 years of church ministry, and it's recommended that pastors take 3 months or more every 7...
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a principle about how Christians can respond to controversial issues, and I think it bears repeating here. Our society is highly polarized on many issues, which means that most current events are presented as a choice between Option A and Option B. That's it. You...
Yeah, the soccer last week was exciting, but now that I have your attention, let's talk about a different kind of goal. Cheap trick, but effective. The various leaders have been working on goal statements for each area of ministry, and we saw the need to have an overarching goal statement. All...
The bi-annual EFCA national conference "EFCA One" was held last week in Naperville, IL. Over 1500 attendees fro across the US and some overseas locations joined together for worship, training, encouragement, networking, and denominational business. As always, the conference was rich and...
Be safe and dangerous. Be safe in the sense that people feel safe with you, safe enough to share their lives, their concerns, and their less-than-flattering selves with you. Develop authentic enough relationships where people know you as a safe person. Jesus was a safe person. People with the...
My sister-in-law had a job she didn't like. She was in leadership at a private school and loved much about the work - the students, the teaching methodology and principles, and the mission. However, there were some parts of the work that were so bad that she eagerly made her exit at the end of a...
There's an annoying thing about getting older - the flaws in yourself that you've been able to successfully pretend aren't there become harder to ignore. Maturity, schmaturity. I'm becoming increasingly aware that when people give me heartburn, I have that heartburn in part because my heart was...
Last week, we rearranged the musical chairs, so to speak. Normally, we have a batch of worship songs before the sermon, but this time, we put the batch of songs after the sermon. In part, we wanted to just shake the pattern so that we don't become mindless with a too-familiar pattern. Also, we...
Summer is that close! Almost here! Now is a great time, then, to think about deepening your connection with your neighbors. You are an ambassador for Christ, strategically placed in your neighborhood to love your neighbor as yourself. Your fellow church family members have been...
My mother lives in assisted living nearby in a facility that also has a section for memory care residents. We also have memory care residents just across our church parking lot next door, folks who our Sunday school kids visit on a monthly basis. Memory care issues are pure frustration both for...