What do we do with the memories that haunt us? That sneak up on us late at night.  And whisper words that cut quick to our core?

When reading Paul’s letters, the exegetical and theological mistakes we might make are numerous and often tragic, as we all know. The list of insights is significant, of course, but so too are the distracting detours and the deadly interpretations.

A one on one interview with Jessica Liles exploring the challenges of planting a church and building relationships between the congregation and the community in an ever-changing world.

An interview with ConseCrate subscription box founder Dr. Rev. Ruth Hetland.

A new balance is being struck in modern weddings to incorporate religion, pre-marital counseling, and non-traditional officiants. This balance offers trust, communication, and sincerity in new meaningful ways for younger generations whose religious practices and expectations have changed.

A congregation in the town next to ours has a new main outdoor sign.  Recently the sign said, “Now open between Easter and Christmas.”  I wondered what they meant by the phrase and why they used it?

Our first interview in the Leadership Lab series with Rev. Wesley Morris.

The parable of the talents then would become a commentary at large about an economy that uses people and values things rather than values people and uses things.

It is up to people like us to reclaim and rebuild the commons, what we share of what God has given us. And some of that rebuilding is of institutions.

In the context of congregational disruption, leaders have two options: 1) lead in a manner that disrupts the status quo that is going to be disrupted by culture anyway or, 2) allow the disruption to determine the future of the congregation.

Churches, leadership, and denominations should begin by seeing ministers as complete human beings with a variety of gifts to offer inside and outside the church, rather than sort of widgets to fill in to particular parish settings, while adding in a part-time job or “bivocational ministry” heading to pay the bills. 

Many people think I’m “not working” since I left my most recent parish call, and in my denomination, our practice of placing multi-vocational ministers “on leave from call,” reinforces this misunderstanding.

We carefully read through Lenten devotionals and give up things for forty days, but then rush through Easter as if it’s one day, and never take time to think about what fifty days of feasting could look like for our so-tired souls.

Christian parenting is tough. On one hand, I desperately want my two daughters to have faith in God. I want them to experience the church as a place that models the love of God. I want them to be compelled to act when they see the image of God in their neighbors. On the other, I don’t want the weight of my expectations to become an unbearable burden. And, if I’m honest, my expectations are weighty.

People leave and get let go. People quit and get fired. This is not a conversation about that. This is a conversation about how we treat people who leave or get let go.

There are many roads in this life. Some are actual roads that take us from “point A to point B.” Others are metaphorical, roads that we travel in our hearts. Many of the roads we travel, we never think of again, but some roads are so defining that they become drawn across our story with indelible ink.

You are invited to focus on your personal regrets by both naming and reframing them, and by so doing, nourish in a particular way, God’s call for both your present and your future.