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How Bad Memory is Afflicting Your Ministry (& Maybe Your Marriage)
Could your church (or community) be suffering from faulty memory? I thought about this last Monday when I attended a presentation on the Missional Wisdom Movement. The movement is relatively new and it is supporting the creation of new forms of Christian community that take the form of everything from a laundromat ministry to co-working… →
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On Talking to the Dead
Guest-blogging on the Streetlight Magazine site and talking to dead people: On Talking to the Dead →
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86 Sermons on Song of Songs
The 12th-century monastic, Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote 86 sermons on the Song of Songs… 86 Sermons on Song of Songs Bernard of Clairvaux no doubt wrote many more. The more scandalous never made it out of his cell. But he knew that there was nothing more essential than the one theme of desire. If he… →
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How to write a good country song
When was it that a hit country song became a list of country-fried images? Seems like all you have to do is string together bare feet, pickup trucks, fishing poles, and mama and you’ve got you a bestseller. (And, yes, I do know that I was a country music DJ back in the day when… →
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Feathered, Pleated Strength – Psalm 36 loosely translated
Psalm 36 I know the sinful utterance of the wicked– know it like the back of my hand, know the sound of it, the taste of it as it passes my lips. I have heard myself quickening the dead letter of law while God whispers in my ear, “Let it die!” I protest my innocence… →
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The Last Thing I Want to Talk About – Bishop Oliveto and the UMC
The last thing I want to talk about is the United Methodist Church’s legal wrangling around the election of Bishop Karen Oliveto, who came to her office last year as a lesbian pastor in a same-sex marriage. Last week the Judicial Council of the denomination ruled that her consecration as bishop was carried out in… →
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Five Reasons to Look Forward to Ministry in 2017
Tired of counting the reasons the sky is falling? Me, too. The traditional metrics for mainline ministry (church membership, finances, number of organists) may be on the decline and the angst about how the nation’s Great Divide will impact the church continues. But let me give voice to the hope that is within me during… →
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A glorious, shabby democracy – my interview with photographer Michael Mergen concludes (3 of 3)
Having talked with photographer Michael Mergen in previous segments about his Civil War landscapes and the parallel Civil Rights series, today we talk about the glorious shabbiness of American democracy. This is something he explored in two works we talk about here – one a series in which he photographs buildings across the country that… →
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Interchangeable heads and crayons in Selma – my interview with photographer Michael Mergen continues (part 2 of 3)
I’m so glad I obeyed my impulse at the stoplight in downtown Farmville, Virginia. I was driving through and stopped at a red light next to the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts where a local photographer’s work was on display. I pulled into a parking spot and discovered Michael Mergen. In the first part… →
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When Robert E. Lee was in the Walgreen’s Parking Lot – An interview with Photographer Michael Mergen (part 1 of 3)
Michael Mergen is a photographer of memory and landscape. His photos capture ordinary, even shabby parts of America and invest them with the meanings we place on them. So a series on the things businesses give as freebies to veterans (burgers, ice cream) and another on the things we name for war heroes (interstate highway… →
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Heartlands 