Blog

One of the greatest hurdles I have as a pastor is how traditional church concepts have been used in harmful ways toward individuals. Instead of being used as tools of liberation and to build individual and communal faith, certain terms have been used for shame and to keep power dynamics in place. One of those terms is repentance. I believe there may not be a more important Christian concept in our society than repentance right now. Unfortunately, sometimes repentance is used

I'm a planner. The only times I have an ounce of spontaneity in me are when I plan to do something spontaneous, and I'm not even sure that should count. For better and worse, I like to plan for the future and do everything I can to prepare well for that future. That's one of the reasons I love lent. It is a time of preparation. We know resurrection Sunday is coming, but in order to get there and to have it be meaningful, we have to go through a time of preparation. This takes

This coming Saturday morning at 11:00 we will have an initial training on Simplified and Accountable Leadership Structure (SAS). This is a structure that many United Methodist Churches of all sizes have adopted in recent years and have found it has helped them be more effective in ministry. Still, just because it has worked elsewhere doesn't automatically mean it would work for our church. Why do I believe it will work here? 1) We have great people. In my seven months here,