I've always been a city kid and for the most part have always lived in a city. As kids growing up in Michigan, I grew up with the belief that the 'burbs were somehow not a good place to be. They were filled with white people who fled the cities to escape people who look... Continue Reading →
"A Glimse of What Is Possible"
The word is getting around about SpringHouse Ministry Center (that's the new name), the new building where First Christian is moving to and working with a UCC and a Lutheran congregation. I've shared about how First Christian came to join this partnership and now here are some words from Geoffrey Black, the General Minister and... 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 →
Repost: Come and Visit My Church
From December 2010: A few years ago, I got a call from someone who wanted to visit Community of Grace, the church start that I did a few years ago. The person wanted to know about the church and it seemed they were interested in benig part of a church with a big choir and... Continue Reading →
Repost: “Progressive Christians” and Yours Truly
From June of this year. I've been noticing lately within Mainline Protestant circles, the rising use of the word "progressive" as a way to describe Christians who might have once used the term "mainline Protestant." The biggest change to note is over at the religion megasite Patheos, which changed the name of one of their... Continue Reading →
Retread: Faith in Low Tide
This post is from November 2010. This past Sunday, our church held a Trunk or Treat event at church. A number of members got together and decorated their cars and welcomed people to come by. We had a few people who actually did come with their kids. One gaggle of kids included a little girl... Continue Reading →
Super Simple Sunday School
I'm starting a new Sunday School class at First Christian that's called Super Simple Sunday School. It's basically morning devotions/morning prayer. The class goes a bit like this: We read one of that Sunday's lectionary text. We have a brief discussion of the text. We share prayer concerns. We pray. We leave. That's it. The... 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 →
The Clockwork Pastor 