October 2011
2 posts
if i get to five
sometimes the best ministry books aren’t really about ministry at all.
from neurosurgeon fred epstein’s if i get to five:
“we’ve learned that keeping ourselves open to the emotional as well as physical pain around us doesn’t come naturally; retreating from other people’s pain does. compassion isn’t a passive state. it’s an act of will, an act of...
September 2011
2 posts
royally wasteful
my current hero, lauren winner, at a conference for christian artists a few years back::
“we live in a secular world governed by a capitalist model of scarcity. there’s never enough money in our world and there’s never enough time. all of our resources are scarce.
by contrast, our god gives us a very different economy. our god is a god of overflowing creative fecundity, a god...
August 2011
2 posts
“to hand a man seeds for his swelling, panging starvation, and ask him to believe...”
– ann vonskamp
“I began spending the bulk of my “relational ministry” helping youth...”
– Kenda Creasy Dean
The Godbearing Life
July 2011
2 posts
the stories i tell myself
as i have begun to study and think about spiritual practices i am less and less satisfied with the often-used analogy of practicing piano scales in preparation to play beethoven someday. instead, i find myself drawn to the idea that spiritual practices are really just the stories that we repeat to ourselves. i am convinced that the practices i embody - the stories i tell myself - have real impact...
June 2011
5 posts
“o Love that will not let me go,
i rest my weary soul in Thee;
i give Thee back...”
– rev. george matheson
vespers office, june 21, the divine hours
“sometimes the crucifixion of our will comes through other people whom we bear,...”
– meditations on the stations of the cross
belmont abbey college
pastor and theologian?
i have left, this week, my beloved community of gritty, grounded ministry and have been given the privilege to listen to the voices shaping the larger conversation of the Church. it has been an indescribably rich week, but has left me wondering if it is possible to both speak into the cloud of higher conversation and have feet firmly planted in a local community.
i am confident that excellent...
May 2011
9 posts
“low expectations are more a sign of my heart condition than of God’s character. ...”
– fast.pray.
“just as israel no longer needed manna when it finally settled in the land...”
– alister mcgrath
christian spirituality
“dogmatic and mystical theology, or theology and “spirituality”, are...”
– thomas merton
“my grammar book said, “the middle voice is that use of the verb which...”
– eugene peterson
the contemplative pastor
“we want to join God in rest and in celebration. and in the end, when our brains...”
– brian mclaren
finding our way again
“much of what we see and experience in contemporary christianity is not leading...”
– gerald l. sittser
water from a deep well
a fall from grace
a friend recently mentioned her fall from grace at a local church. it was a small comment in the midst of a much larger story but i can’t seem to shake the theological absurdity and it’s been bouncing around my brain ever since.
a fall from grace? but isn’t the fall the very beginning of grace?
her issue is almost irrelevant. it is enough to know that whether addiction or...
“[Jesus] wants Peter to feed his sheep and care for them, not as “professionals”...”
– Henri Nouwen
In the Name of Jesus
“our hopes are a measure of our greatness. when they shrink, we ourselves are...”
– miraslov volf
against the tide
April 2011
5 posts
“i write about God because i love Him deeply. and yet because i love Him, i’m...”
– shaun groves
“…every part of scripture is written to people in community. and, although...”
– tony jones
postmodern youth ministry
“Sloth is not restfulness. Sloth is escapism of the deadly sort. Sloth saps our...”
– Jeff Cook
Seven
via
March 2011
11 posts
“It’s easier for us to be served than to serve and to take than to give....”
– Miroslav Volf
Against the Tide
humanized
it is easy to judge the unknown. easy to condemn the faceless or the foreign.
but what if The Aids Victims weren’t just a mass of humanity 5,000 miles from you, but a preschooler at your church. what if The Poor weren’t just underachievers, but your unemployed best friend. if The Homosexuals weren’t just scary-different, but your dad. what if the girl contemplating An Abortion was the...
“i suppose that even if my parents had stayed together, they more than likely...”
– andy root
the children of divorce
“the call is not to join an institution or to sign a pledge card; it is rather to...”
– walter brueggemann
the word that redescribes the world
pastor or advocate?
our missions pastor has been mislabeled. he is not the pastor to all our missionaries or even a pastor to all the people who need missionaries. instead his jobs seems to be very little about pastoral care and very much about advocating.
he stands on Sunday mornings to remind our congregation of our commitment to pray for, to spiritually support, the missionaries we financially back.
he...
“…this suggests that when one has the courage to enter where life is...”
– Henri Nouwen
Wounded Healer
“We were meant to desire. If you try to control desire through castration or...”
– Chuck DeGroat
“The Missional Position”
“We’ve watched Exxon Valdez, the BP oil spill, numerous coal mining...”
– Tom Cochran
Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(via CNN)
“…It is no wonder that adolescents are drawn to mission trips. Two...”
– Andy Root
“The Youth Ministry Mission Trip as Global Tourism: Are we ok with this?” in Dialog: A Journal of Theology
“But the way narcissism is being worked out in many young lives is in a movement...”
– Walt Mueller
“Envy invites me to put on glasses that see the world as though God has not given...”
– Jeff Cook
Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes
(via Jesus Creed)
July 2010
2 posts
how does he love
the smell of wet-sweaty-jr-high-boy came in rough waves around me but my mind was fixed on the diagnosis. manageable but incurable. life-long.
24 hours had not been enough time to wrap my head around the changes coming to this dear friend of mine. this third of my heart. i wanted to comfort and love and care for her alone but i was called to this retreat. to comfort and love and care for the...
“Sometimes we are deprived of things because God has better things down the road....”
– Darrell Bock
Commentary on Luke
June 2010
1 post
“today the churches are undergoing fratricide over the issue of homosexuality,...”
– walter wink
“homosexuality and christian faith”
bill and lois
they have been the voices of my childhood. permanent fixtures at christmases and graduations and weddings. they could always be counted on for help on a history report or a slice of fresh bread after a long car ride.
my love for books is theirs. my love for cooking from them. my genes and my heritage and my family, all theirs.
and as the thought of the end pulls the grief from deep inside...
May 2010
9 posts
“the most important thing you think is what you think when you think about god,...”
– dr. jeffery bingham
“i didn’t drop gambling because anybody preached against it. that kind of...”
– John M. Perkins
let justice roll down
the best of days
in a community chock-full of “churched” folks i often feel surrounded by people who know Truth. i forget that there are some who have never heard. but they are here, even in my bible belt bubble.
so it was with dodgeball-sweaty hands and a heart fully aware of the immense privilege it is to enter into the redemption story that i handed a bible to a boy who had never before held one.
...
prone to wander
i’ve been told that he is a father that gives all good things. i’ve read that when i ask for bread he will never hand me a rock. it is said the he protects and gives and provides.
thousands of years of testimonies and 27 years of personal life point to his faithfulness. not a single misstep. not one mistake. no missed opportunities.
but in the depths of this calloused heart i...
“There is also this call to believe, to truly trust that my deepest longings are...”
– Sarah Whiting
“The issue is not “What must I do in order to secure my salvation?” but rather,...”
– Walter Wink
(via Petey Crowder)
good. able. enough.
today the answer is no. it is not an easy no. i have prayed and asked and pleaded and begged. i have shook my fist at the heavens. i have laid my heart at the altar countless times, only to snatch it back to the safety of my own control. i have wanted and wished and wept. but no has come.
so i am left only with the knowledge that god is able. he is able to do all things. he could change any...
“We will become better teachers not by trying to fill the potholes in our souls...”
– Parker Palmer
“Let Your Life Speak”