From July 2010: When I was a kid , I spent several years on the junior usher board at church. Of course, back in the 70s, neither I nor my parents knew I was autistic, but they knew things were a bit off with me. Anyway, being an usher in the African American church is... Continue Reading →
Inclusion and Discipleship
A post by Methodist blogger Alan Bevere has stayed with me since it was originally published back in June of this year. The post, "So, Just How Inclusive Was Jesus?" muses on the modern value of inclusion and how it does and doesn't square with Jesus. I agree with Tom Wright that modern notions of... Continue Reading →
Inclusion and Discipleship
A post by Methodist blogger Alan Bevere has stayed with me since it was originally published back in June of this year. The post, "So, Just How Inclusive Was Jesus?" muses on the modern value of inclusion and how it does and doesn't square with Jesus. I agree with Tom Wright that modern notions of... 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 →
“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 InPrint, 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 →
Lillian Daniel, Adam Copeland and the SBNRs
My last post created a lot of comments on Facebook. A colleague of mine disagreed with the article and me for the attitude against those who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious." Actually, I was agreeing to a short article written by UCC pastor Lillian Daniel and her comments have received a bit of criticism... Continue Reading →
Another Way to Grow or This Little Light of Mine
One of the things you hear about when a church is in decline is how to grow the church. Of course, when people talk about growing the church they mean, to put in crudely, butts in the pews. Church members and clergy all want to find some magic formula to make people enter the doors... Continue Reading →
Random Musings on Anti-Gay Bullying and Suicide
I might get in trouble for some of these words, but here goes: I'm a little bit confused about how we look at today's youth. On the one hand, we are told that young kids are far more tolerant of gays than older groups. On the other hand, we see a lot of young gay... Continue Reading →
The Clockwork Pastor 