Perhaps there were adults too,
She suggests,
But in the agrarian societies
Of the First Century,
Much like in agrarian societies of today –
One of the first jobs
Of children
Was to tend the sheep and the goats
Out in the fields –
Like David
Of old.
The.
Shepherds.
Were.
Children.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

When I’m coaching, it’s not about me or my ministry. And since I’ve been bearing witness to Sandy’s ministry all year, through these sessions, site visits and engagement with her congregational leaders, I have a robust sense of why her ministry is fantastic. I could ask, “Why did you want everything about your ministry to change?” But I don’t. Instead, I just listen because coaching might be the only place Sandy gets to name these things aloud so she can hear them, share them, and loosen some of their power.

In the end, the root of all progress is community. We cannot walk through the challenges of our personal lives alone, let alone affect broader positive change. It is through shared faith, shared vision, and shared purpose that we move forward.

It took me all this time, but I have learned my lesson. Here it is in a nutshell: ENJOY THE JOURNEY! Let me break it down for you…

As clergy and congregations move toward Advent and Christmas, Black Friday offers an opportunity for self-reflection on a reality so omnipresent that it can be hard for people living in the United States to perceive. Like the air we breathe, consumerism saturates our imaginations. It shapes our identities, our desires, and the way we celebrate the holiday season.

Yes is the heartbeat of the incarnation story. Mary’s yes allows God’s promise to take flesh, Joseph’s yes protects and provides for their family, the shepherds’ yes leads them to the manger, and the magi’s yes draws them out in search of the divine mystery. There are so many points in this story where someone, or a group of someones, give a very significant yes.

Instead of enriching the world’s wealthiest, we choose to strengthen the places and people that make our communities whole. We choose local businesses struggling to survive, nonprofits caring for the vulnerable, and neighbors in need of compassion.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

That's the real scandal of so many of these calls: the cold remove on the other end of the line. You hear it from clergy, from office managers, and from whoever the office manager transfers the call to (presumably someone who's better equipped than the office manager to answer this sort of query). Flatness. These calls, and the bureaucratic sheen of cruelty, are excruciating: I'm sorry, we can't help you, click.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

In most worship settings, I have come to learn over time that my methods to cope with overstimulation is a social risk. What helps me (and many other people on the autism spectrum and/or with ADHD) stay focused and in-tune may come off to the congregation as disengaged, distracting, or even disrespectful. ... Often, I attempt to mask my discomfort by dissociating and building a world in my mind where I am safe and have space to be alone there.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

The invitation I’m offering in Liturgies for Resisting Empire is to identify those overarching themes of imperial thinking – like dominance and power, dualistic thinking, structures of hierarchy – that have taken root in all of us, to understand the history and processes of how they came to be, and to make intentional choices that act counter to that and lead us towards communal healing.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

On November 16th, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Roman Catholic Church will celebrate the eighth World Day of the Poor. This global observance was established by the late Pope Francis in 2017 [to remind us that] that, in Francis’ words, “so long as Lazarus remains at our gate” (Luke 16), the Church’s work is not yet done.

When a little Rumi or Jinu shows up at your door for Halloween, or when your Sunday School classes won’t stop chanting “gonna be gonna be golden,” you don’t need to worry that demons are encroaching on God’s world. You can smile, knowing these kids have learned something about shared suffering and transformation and redemption.

I’m convinced that if pastors engaged their congregations with the same intentionality comedians bring to a club, our sermons would not just inform but truly connect, inspire, and transform.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

Throughout history, powerful Christians have understood Daniel 7 to show them that God has chosen them to be divinely appointed world rulers––but then behave more like the beasts than the “nobodies” that God actually chooses to rule. From Constantine’s theologians claiming to establish the kingdom of the saints, to Charlemagne’s biographer describing his kingdom as the renewed fourth empire, to American notions of manifest destiny that drew on the language of Daniel 7: empire after empire has claimed what they think is Daniel’s promise of eternal global domination. Those claiming to be the holy ones became the beast, speaking arrogant words and making war on the vulnerable communities who suffer under systems of domination.