'Community' Tagged Posts
10 Things I’ve Learned in Two Years of Ministry
Things I have learned after two years in full-time ministry, in no particular order: It is such common knowledge it is almost nonsense to write about it: millennial leaders are more co-operative than their predecessors. I have noticed that this isn’t really about age of body but rather of mind. Some young stallions are as closed-minded and isolated as anyone ever has been and some older fellas are as open as a kitchen window facing the ocean on a warm…
Honestly, I’ve Been Anxious about My Return to Ministry
I first felt the call to ministry a few years ago and I did all the normal things one does. I spoke with family and friends, sought guidance from my pastor and eventually went to seminary. The church has been nothing if not affirming and welcoming. I have been leading a congregation for almost two years here now and things are by most measures going swimmingly. In fact, we sprinted to raise a large sum of money and are about…
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…
3 Reasons Pastors Struggle With Comments
No one really likes criticism, especially if it’s not constructive, not given in a manner meant to help. We have all received feedback that was meant to demonstrate the intelligence of the one offering the criticism, or meant to tell us about what they value, that contains nothing on which we can build. I want to do my job well, and so do you, whatever you do. I think ministers often have a hard time with criticism because: We have…
Walking a Dog…What’s That Smell???
What’s that smell? It’s spring here on Vancouver Island and the flowers are budding and many tulips have already blossomed and many others stand sentinel straight waiting for just the right moment to grace the earth with their blooms. I was walking my dog this morning amidst the splendor and sunshine when we had an inauspicious start. She laid a deuce that scented the air with sickness and my alert brain immediately discerned that something my bubbly 2-year-old mutt ate…
Walking Through the Motto in Lent
It’s Ash Wednesday and the internet is a flutter with what people are giving up (cheese, chocolate, booze, saying no, television, Facebook), and what people are picking up (saying yes more, saying I love you more, praying, meditating, running, scripture reading, small groups). What the Pope says we should do (love others better), and various other takes. Common among them is the notion that Lent is a time of preparation, preparation for Easter and for the life of faith. I…
Thoughts on The Compelling Community
“The Compelling Community. Where God’s power makes a church attractive.” Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop. Crossway; 2015. In their book on community Dever and Dunlop pose a tough question, have we in our churches created communities that would exist even if God didn’t? Stop a second to think about that. What draws the people of a given congregation together? Do they share similar ethnic identities or ages? Similar educations or income brackets? Do they identify as artists or athletes? Are…
The Life of Faith Involves the Community of Faith
I have been meeting more and more people, both in person and online through social media sites like Facebook, who aren’t sure they need to go to church to be Christian. They make various arguments, at times they are sincere, but rarely are they based on the bible. I suppose, perhaps, you could be a Christian who doesn’t hold God’s word to be particularly important, but I wonder what sort of Christian that would be. Taking a time away from…
It’s Simple Really
This past week I stumbled upon a blog post about living more simply. It stated that the average North American house has something like 300 000 objects in it and that there is a movement of people trying to get their number down to under 1000. They suggest the things we own in reality own us; and they propose a bunch of ways to lower our number. One way, if you are interested, is to spend a month progressively getting…
It Takes a Village
This past week our boys Oliver (5) and Thomas (2.5) have lost the ability to go to sleep. It was never really their strongest feature but with the elongated days things have been getting a little out of hand. Our stories of little boys with coughs that turn into superpowers allowing them to cough at a bus to move it and save a group of people go on into the night as our boys ask for more and more stories.…
Mentors in the Line of Fire
It’s been noted that the Apostle Paul spelled out mentoring as his leadership model very simply, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). This past week I have been thinking about the people who poured themselves into me to help me to be in the position I am in today, a position where I get: to preach about my faith and beliefs weekly, to walk alongside both those experiencing great joy and those who…
The Oval Drive Nagleian Community
When I was really little I lived on a street called Oval Drive, it was an oval shaped road with small houses built co-operatively by a group of veterans (my grandfather among them) who had received a special land grant. The Oval was a special place to live, the adults knew each other well, I remember them walking through each others’ back yards on summer evenings, drinks in hand (most non-alcoholic because they couldn’t afford booze). They would play cards…
The Hospitality of Jesus
One of the things I like about Jesus is how he was ready to help others, to show a sign of love and kindness, even when he was tired and even when he wasn’t sure where the strength or the energy was to come from. Not only that, he did this trusting in the best of the other, by that I mean that he could see past the surface, beyond the easy reality of those who came before him, and…