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 →
Sunday Sermon: May 2, 2010
I usually post my sermons soon after I preach them, but for some reason I didn't post this one last year. I filled in for the pastor at Plymouth Creek Christian Church in Plymouth, MN. Part of the reason I share this now is that I want to tell part of the ongoing story of... 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 →
Autism and the Ministry
From the blog, Autistic Me: Following a panel discussion I was asked if my autistic traits made me a better teacher. I replied, "No. They are a disadvantage for much of what I teach." The mother asking the question was puzzled. I don't believe I offered the answer she wanted. This led me to ponder... Continue Reading →
An Evangelical Looks at a Mainline Seminary
One of my favorite bloggers to read these days is Timothy Dalrymple. He's a social conservative and I, being a gay pastor am...not. But even though we probably see things differently, his reasoning has always been solid and reminds me that social conservatives are real people and not simply caricatures. He has an interesting column... Continue Reading →
Part-Time Clergy: Get Used To It.
I don't always agree with Tony Jones, but he's spot on when it comes to the economic future of clergy in mainline churches: At Pangea, Kurt makes good points about the massive debt that many seminarians graduate with. He’s right, they do. And they’re headed straight into a field that pays about $40,000 per year.... Continue Reading →
Death Penalty PR
The following post is adapted from a post on my political blog last month. In all the hubbub surrounding the execution of Troy Davis, there was little mention of another execution taking place in Texas on the same day: As Texas prepares to execute one of his father's killers, Ross Byrd hopes the state shows... Continue Reading →
Being a Teenager Sucks
I found a blog post from the blog Her-menutic that had an interesting perspective on bullying. I can say that I don't agree with the writer's viewpoint on being gay (and she seems to ignore the fact that there is more than one Christian viewpoint on homosexuality), but she does make a point that I... Continue Reading →
When Politics Becomes a Religion
David Brooks has an instructive piece up on how American politics has given way too much meaning to certain issues so as to rob them of any practicality. He uses a lesson which is taking shape as we speak: the building of One World Trade Center in shadow of its predecessors: Ground zero in Lower... Continue Reading →
The Clockwork Pastor 