Youth Ministry Moment

“Hey, there’s Steve. He’ll do it!”
I heard a friend say this as I was passing his table at Annual Conference this past June. The matter before the body at the time was a series of resolutions on various social justice issues. We had been debating them for around 45 minutes, and, I must add, in [...]

Lead on, Oklahoma City?

73 years ago yesterday, July 16, 1935, the first parking meters anywhere went to work in OKC.
Perhaps one wouldn’t expect such a novel concept and excellent revenue stream to be born in Oklahoma City.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting piece for the New Yorker about big ideas and change. Apparently big, revolutionary ideas are not particualrly [...]

Unworthy?

“You are unworthy. I am unworthy. We are all unworthy.”
So spoke a “worship leader” at a worship service I attended recently.
I understand what (I think) he was trying to say. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, how beneficial it is to stand before a crowd of youth and tell them in an [...]

To Ministry

I am in Abilene, Texas through Friday for JYMO (Jurisdictional Youth Ministry Organization). McMurry University is our gracious host.
During this week, I’ll be leading a workshop on “Exploring the Call.” The purpose of this workshop is to help youth understand and interpret the calling God has placed and is placing on their lives. [...]

Links

Walter Brueggemann quote at God’s Politics
Bryan Bellamy - You may have seen this elsewhere.
Dave Wainscott’s latest on Christian v. secular music. (anyone who remembers Chagall Guevara gets my vote!)
Kyle Roberson proposes a Wesleyan Neo-Monastic Emerging Community

Heyduck Amendment

At Annual Conference this past week, we took some time on Tuesday afternoon, and again on Wednesday morning, to discuss resolutions on various social issues.
When the one titled “Resolution Regarding Global Climate Change” (page 124 at this link), I offered an amendment.  Line 16 read “1. Join in covenant with people of faith to work [...]

Presumed… Christian?

Over at The Journal of Student Ministries, Dave Decker has an interesting article that starts this way:
As I talk with my buddy on the phone, getting the skinny on the retreat he’s having me speak at, he drops the ol’ “um…and like…I know you’ll do this anyway, but we like really want a clear presentation [...]

Control

I am all about change.  I think it goes along with being an ENTP, but I’ve always been about doing things differently.  For me, not only has “but we’ve always done it that way” not stopped me from changing patterns, when I was younger I was actually energized for change proportionately to the grip of [...]

Kingdom Rant

So yesterday I am at another Church and see on another church bulletin that famous category “Our Men and Women in the Military.” Sometimes they specify “in Iraq,” or “in the war;” I am pretty sure they all mean about the same thing.
Yes; I pray for the U.S. Military. I pray for soldiers [...]

Learning and Growing, Challenging and Provoking

I am at Perkins School of Theology, at SMU in Dallas this week for training to become a mentor pastor to a student intern.
Yesterday, one of the early sessions found a couple of students who have just completed their internships, sharing with us their perspectives on the process. One of the students mused that [...]