As much as I love following and engaging in politics, I've have come to the opinion that politics is nasty business; especially for Christians and especially in these highly polarized times.The diversity of political opinion as well as healthy debate are hallmarks of a democratic society. My mom talks about growing up in her native... Continue Reading →
How I Totally Failed in Planting a New Church (And Why I’d Do It Again)
Presbyterian pastor and blogger Landon Whitsitt shares two ways that a church plant can fail. The second one is trying to do it like you would staring a business. The first one kind of takes a motto from a certain athletic company as gospel: For folks in the circles I typically run in (read: postmodern... Continue Reading →
A Table, A Cross, An Elephant and a Donkey
Christ of the Polls by Stushie.There was a time in my life when I really loved talking about politics. I come from a family where my mother talked about politics constantly and still does. But these days, I don't enjoy politics as much as I used to. I still enjoy and I still blog about... Continue Reading →
"Welcoming Every Member of the Body"
As many of you know, besides my duties as the Associate Pastor at First Christian in Minneapolis, I also work as the Communications Specialist for the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. I worked with the Presbytery's Disabilities Concerns Taskforce to put together a special issue ofInPrint, the bimonthly newsmagazine I put out. There are... Continue Reading →
What Does the Lord Require?
A few weeks back, I happened to be browsing the religious website Patheos and came accross a blog post by Greg Garrett called "God Commands Compassion, Not Evangelism." The title fascinated me and the excerpt was even more interesting: "Christianity is not about praying in a certain way, or believing a certain thing, or making... Continue Reading →
Prayer and the Public Sphere
From Professor John Stackhouse:Evangelical Christians have been complaining about not being included in various commemorations of 9/11, whether in New York City, Washington, D.C., or even here in Canada. But we shouldn’t be......Prayer in public secular events is like holding up a photograph of your mother and saying, “I’ve got Mom on speakerphone now, so... Continue Reading →
What Church Is All About
This article has gone viral and I think sums up what church should be all about: the communion of the saints. The writer goes after the person that likes to say they are "spiritual but not religious." Here's a snippet: Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about... Continue Reading →
Can We Just Be Church?
The writer of this blog post is writing from a Methodist perspective as well as from a local viewpoint, but I think there are a lot of people who feel this way: Generally speaking, there is a perception in Springfield that there are only two options in choosing churches. The first I will call “evangelical.”... Continue Reading →
An Uncertain Trumpet
Several years ago, I was at a local GOP convention through my work with Log Cabin Republicans. As I was going about meeting folks, I realized that a gentleman from a church I used to belong to was a delegate to the convention. It was nice to see him, but it was also interesting since... Continue Reading →
The Clockwork Pastor 