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.

You are invited to focus on where you regularly invest your attention by considering what captures your time, energy, thoughts, and imagination in everyday life.

As my faith evolved and I began to question many of the traditions I was raised with, the memory verses sometimes stung like fresh cuts or ached like purple bruises.