The following post is from April of 2008. In light of the recent goings on at the United Methodist General Conference, I thought this might be a good post to share again. I've been a mainline Protestant for about 16 years. I grew up in the evangelical and black churches and found the mainline churches... Continue Reading →
Repost: Notes from a Reluctant Liberal Christian
This was originally posted in January 2011.A few years ago, a dear friend of mine described me as an evangelical turned liberal Protestant. I remember blanching at that definition. Politically, I tend to lean more center-right/libertarian. Theologically, I'm pretty orthodox.But the fact is, I am a liberal Protestant these days. I'm ordained into a mainline... Continue Reading →
What Does It Mean to Be Prophetic?
I stumbled across a post by Methodist blogger Allan Bevere on the prophetic nature of the church. He ends to post like this:As I continue to say-- when Christians hear the word "politics" they should not think state; they should think church. For Christians, our politic is church. But that clearly is not what it... Continue Reading →
Repost: Why Church Planting Matters
Jim, left and my partner, Daniel, right. From August 2010. As First Christian plans its future, a constant among the plans is to leave some money aside for to plant new churches. Both the Senior Pastor and I have made this a priority in what ever decisions are made. That has been met with some... Continue Reading →
Repost: Why Church Planting Matters
Jim, left and my partner, Daniel, right.From August 2010.As First Christian plans its future, a constant among the plans is to leave some money aside for to plant new churches. Both the Senior Pastor and I have made this a priority in what ever decisions are made.That has been met with some resistance. One person... Continue Reading →
Notes from a Scrapper
I've been meaning to share this post by Carol Howard Merritt, but life has been busy and so I never did get around to it. But hearing about some fellow Disciples of Christ clergy who feel that they have no place in the church reminded me of it again. She uses the term "Scrappers" to... Continue Reading →
Repost: Gay, Emergent and Missional
From 2007.... In starting to make my way around the Emergent and Missional circles, I've started to notice two things especially about the Emergent movement: It tends to be really, really white. There is not a lot of talk on being gay. I will get back to topic number one another time, but I wanted... Continue Reading →
All Bankers Go To Heaven (Not)
A few days ago, I got an email from some person who didn't like the fact that I was gay and that the church I serve is okay with gay folk. The writer said something to the effect that I was basically hellbound and that I needed to ask God for forgiveness for being gay.... 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: “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 →
The Clockwork Pastor 