Church Blog

Church Blog

Women in Ministry in the Bible

Over the past several weeks, there’s been much ado about the brouhaha with the Southern Baptist Convention voting out two churches whose offense was having a woman in a pastoral role. You can read more about it in the links at the bottom of the article. Although I’m not a Southern Baptist, I feel a need to say something about it for two reasons. First, I’m a pastor in a…

What Do You Do on Sabbatical? Part 2 – Cook

If you didn’t read Part 1, I’m cool with that. Who am I? You don’t owe me anything. I was on sabbatical for 10 weeks and probably most people want the general idea of what I was doing for that time. Others may want a little more detail. These posts are for the latter kind. This…

What Do You Do on Sabbatical? Part 1 – Vacation

As I sat down on my first full day back in the office (I snuck in Monday afternoon without alerting anybody), I began to imagine all the many conversations we’re likely to have. I can’t wait for them. I’m excited to hear from you and to share some of what I did over sabbatical. But, it occurred to…

Why Policy Matters – It’s about People

I’m writing this post on a Wednesday morning – the Wednesday after the tragic shooting in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Like all of us, I suspect, I’m overwhelmed with emotion in hearing this story. I’m hurt and angry and despairing and fully aware that my feelings are a single teardrop in…

Maundy Thursday

Many of you have responded to me about the Maundy Thursday… service? Event? Thing? However we might describe it, I knew how I wanted it to feel and I think the evening accomplished that. I’m grateful to all the people who helped to make it so. It felt… well, we’ll get back to that in a second. Maundy Thursday is about the Last Supper and when you read about…

Deleted Sermon Scenes: Ukrainian Tutor

Sometimes as a preacher, you have to edit out the bits of sermons that just don’t quite fit. Sermons are a bit like movies or stories or poems in that you only have so much time to accomplish something. It forces you to be kind of ruthless with what ends up in the final draft and sometimes that means leaving something you really want to say on the cutting room floor. So,…