by I am a United Methodist Pastor. My humanness may pull me away from my calling, but I seek, struggle and fight to stand firm on my faith in Jesus Christ. The faith community I come from is inclusive of those seeking to fulfill their call from God. Our focus on serving the needs of the poor is paramount to our service in Christ. Our focus of sharing the good news in word and deed…
by My beautiful and amazing wife often remarks that “we are all in this together”. It’s a good phrase to remember during the tough days. When driving to work and the traffic slows, it’s the man or woman who cuts through traffic, the person that is only out for themselves that doesn’t understand that we are all in this together. The rude, the mean, the arrogant and the selfish does not bring us together. In…
by This past week approximately 250 United Methodist’s gathered in Southlake, Texas at White’s Chapel UMC for Bishop’s Week. This was the first “Bishop’s Week” in a few years. Bishop’s Week used to be a learning event for Bishops and their Cabinets. A revisioned iteration exploded onto the scene this year in the South Central Jurisdiction. Titled “Excellence in Ministry: Developing Fruitful Leaders”, the event attempted to be a collaborative learning experience to help all…
by How do young people find their way into ministry these days? Is there a traditional route? Is that route still viable? Maybe there are multiple and diverse routes into ministry? The Call to Action report pushed us all to dramatically reform clergy leadership development, deployment and evaluation. We are suffering from a crisis of relevance as a church and in our clergy system. More and more young people are choosing to find other ways…
by n one of Bishop’s Schnase’s talks, he shared about Wesley and the Early Methodists. He said: Wesley and the Early Methodists -Bold Originality – Outward Focused and Future Oriented – Creative and Experimental – Risky and Countercultural – Mission Driven They were also not afraid to push back against a system of learned scholars and challenge many long held assumptions about church, religion, faith, community and evangelism. Methodists pastors should be committed life long…
by About once a month I visit my local barber shop. In my thirty some years on the planet, I’ve had two barbers. A few others attempted cutting my dwindling hair, but I’ve basically had two barbers throughout my life. In my hometown, my dad went to Jim the Barber, so I went to Jim. After moving away from home to attend college and grad school, I continued to come back to Jim. He is…
by My son will grow up in a world without borders. It’s true. There will be no borders. Many people, maybe not many, have discussed this topic for a few years. Recently, it has become more of a relevant topic. This past week the word came out that there will be no more borders in the whole wide world. Who announced this? It was announced in the Wall Street Journal. Why would they announce it?…
by 7. It’s All About Connecting In the last thirty years, staying connected to others has taken a giant leap forward. Think about it for a moment, do you remember in the early 1980’s and making a long distance phone call was a big deal? Or those new car phones that were outrageously expensive and rarely worked. Then pagers for people other than doctors. Cell phones came along in the mid 1990’s for some of…
by 6. Pastoral Use of Social Media Pastors don’t have much of a “private” life. Being a pastor has been described as living in a fishbowl. Some like it. Some don’t. It’s a fact of service. We are on call 24 hours a day for pastoral emergencies. What we say on Sunday morning should be what we say the rest of the week. What we say during the week should be good enough for Sunday…
by 5. Public and Private Conversations Over the past ten years, especially with the under 22 crowd, self revelation on social media and the web has exploded. What many of us would never think of putting out into public is now very, very public. Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have given a voice to those willing to share and bare it all. Private conversations have become very public. The media has turned what used to be…