Posts from June 2016
Parental Leave: a Time to Serve
My office is all packed up, the bookcase is bare, I am not leaving the church but while I am away on a 10 week parental leave a new office is being built and our new music director is taking over my current space. Things are changing rapidly around St. Andrew’s Duncan and around my house. 10 weeks with four little boys (and summer vacation in full swing no less!) and a recovering wife? I suppose it would be easier to…
Mass Shootings and an Old Promise
You may or may not know that I have two boys 6 and 3 and another due in a month, and a foster child (age 6) in my house. What sort of world are we making for the children, we being us, the adults? I am as biased and confused and frustrated as anyone about the goings on in the world today, the number of news stories I struggle to explain to the boys makes me feel small, less-than-intelligent, and…
4 Keys to a Vital Congregation
People seem to dig the list when it comes to blogs and ministers and lay folks alike seem concerned about the decline of the church and wary of the future. More important all of us are trying to figure out how not only to lead the church but also how to be the church. Many people have pointed out that these days feel a lot more like the church of the Book of Acts than like the church of the…