For most of my life I have been obsessed with trying to get things right. I have been hyper-sensitive to the teachings of the Evangelicalism which constantly nagged me about what a good Christian does and does not do. That list is a web of expectations nearly as involved as… Continue reading
It is infinitely important to have a good editor. She has the same kind of power as a record producer who takes a good song and turns it into a great record (MP3) that is a beautiful piece of artistic expression that connects with people on an emotional level. In… Continue reading
We get together with our friends Christie and Cory a few times a year to try out new restaurants somewhere in or between Chicago and Milwaukee. (We live between Chicago and Milwaukee and they live in Milwaukee.) We eat. We laugh. We linger. That’s what we do when we get… Continue reading
Finally, I am writing again! Here is the latest installment of my second book, Free Range Faith. For context, you might want to go back and read the Introduction and Exhausting Sabbaths. The word, “Sabbath” may stir up mental images of stern looking, old-fashioned, religious people who are strict and… Continue reading
Most of Jesus’ miracles were healings. He healed all manner of people, all different ways, from simply speaking the words, to a touch of his robe, to forgiving sins, to applying mud to blind eyes. He noticed those who were ignored, the outcasts, the beggars, and those who were simply… Continue reading
This is an excerpt of my newest book, Free Range Faith. What’s different about this book book is that I am writing it piece-by-piece here on the blog and I am asking for your comments along the way, so it will be a better book. So please share your thoughts and experiences.… Continue reading
I cannot help but see the stark contrast between Jesus and present day Christianity. It is almost as if they are two different faiths… one separated, cloistered its own subculture; the other, on the streets, in the slums, and the suburbs, alike. One, trying to be holy through self-improvement and dissociation,… Continue reading
If you read the Gospels and you didn’t have any religious background, you would swear that Jesus was doing everything he could think of to agitate the religious establishment of his day. He wasn’t the ultimate hippie or some sort of crazed rebel; he knew exactly what he was doing.… Continue reading
In Jesus day, the Old Testament scriptures had been interpreted very legalistically. Things were spelled out to take out all of the guess work about what it meant to obey (and what counted as sin). According to the Talmud, the 6,200 page rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament, there are… Continue reading
.Penelope loved life and lived it at full throttle. She admired her daddy, emulating his mischievous little grin and his love of ornery escapades. There was an effervescence about her that, at times, just had to bubble over like a well-shaken bottle of Coke. After 9th grade gym class, her… Continue reading
The Evangelical church became a political force in the eighties. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson began articulating a “Christian position” on issues of national interest. Interestingly, it was always the same as the Republican position. They began with moral issues, moved on to “family values”, and eventually had… Continue reading
I have seen him many times and I have discovered that he is full of surprises and is very irreligious. I saw him when I looked out at Lake Michigan yesterday from the bluff in Port Washington, Wisconsin as the sun was illuminating our massive blue inland ocean. I saw… Continue reading
You probably know that I have written a book entitled, An Irreligious Faith that is currently being edited and will be published soon. This book is the fruit of my 25-year search to find a church that is that is relevant in today’s culture, truly compassionate toward outsiders and those… Continue reading
I wish Peter Faulk were still living and wearing his crumbled Colombo trench coat. I would love to hear him approach a church leader at a convention and say, “Excuse me, sir. Just one more question. Did Jesus come to start a religion?” Good question, detective. Religions have their sets of… Continue reading
Even during my last few years as pastor, it seemed to me we had the wrong goal for the Christian life. My Charismatic friends seemed to think it was all about powerful manifestations of God. Speaking in tongues, prophecies, and healings were all the rage. For evangelicals, it seemed to… Continue reading
I am occasionally peaking in on the NASCAR race at Talladega Super Speedway today (Sunday) and that caused me to remember that life is full of restarts. For those of you who think that motor sports are for hicks and watching it on TV is a sure way to induce… Continue reading
During those transitional years, I had a very difficult time figuring out how to do evangelism. Some of the things I have been taught seemed like they cheapened the message by making evangelism all about information and presentation. It seems like there was very little consideration for the person, my… Continue reading
This post is part of a synchroblog, entitled: “What If?” I will publish links to the other writers’ contributions on Wednesday. Here is a little more explanation. This month we invite you to play the ‘what if’ game with us. Try to imagine that some or all of the Bible… Continue reading
I love Jesus’ response to the women caught as she was having sex with a man that she shouldn’t have been having sex with. Scooped up from the bedroom and thrown into the middle of a mob of self-righteous men, she cowered, quivering, ready for the first rock to hit her in… Continue reading
My book, An Irreligious Faith is now in the hands of my editor. Fortunately, she is not someone that a literary agent or publisher recommended. She is a friend and a gifted writer who gets what I am trying to do with the book. Besides correcting grammar and phraseology faux pas,… Continue reading
Several years ago when I read, A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren, my faith was shaken. I finished the book with far more questions than I had when I began the book. One of my struggles was how to regard the Bible. I wondered, “Is it some sort… Continue reading
When I was a pastor, the Sunday morning service was the thing. We brainstormed, planned, practiced, studied, rehearsed, and critiqued, trying to get it just right. It consumed huge blocks of time every week. We wanted to create an impression and elicit a specific response. It was theater. There are parts… Continue reading
At one of the churches we attended, the pastoral staff frequently attended conferences. That resulted in a church that flowed on the tides of the latest trends espoused by the mega-churches and their gurus. This church was forever tweaking their mission statement, ministry names, and structures. At the newcomers’ lunches… Continue reading
Almost all of the conferences I went to as a pastor were about building the church, increasing attendance, offerings, and participation in ministries. We got it wrong! This is the overarching principle for all the shifts that I mentioned so far. It strikes at the basic purpose of the church.… Continue reading
At one point during a community festival of kindness event, I walked to the upper bleachers of the community center and looked down on all that was happening. Families were receiving free groceries, health screenings were happening, a whole array of agencies were on hand, along with hundreds of volunteers… Continue reading
It must have been nearly ten years ago when Aaron, the Student Community Pastor at the church I was attending was sitting in my car in front of the church building. We had just finished going out for lunch and had our usual on-going conversation about the sins of the… Continue reading
My very best church experience was when the church I pastored was going through a rebirth. Our small groups became like individual churches where the participants experienced true community. All kinds of needs were being spontaneously met. No programs were needed. People were given rides to the doctor’s office. Individuals… Continue reading
It has been forty years since I was in high school. I would probably flunk a content-oriented test in any of my courses because I just don’t remember that stuff, but I do remember two teachers. Mr. Blakely was a very intelligent social sciences teacher who taught our International Relations… Continue reading
Lately, I have run across a lot of people who hate Valentine’s Day. Singles are reminded of their loneliness. Lovers become sadly aware their relationships always fall short of what they see in the movies. The daily grind of life tends to grind the romance right out of life. So,… Continue reading
When I was a pastor, there was a tendency among pastors to gauge a church’s success by the size of their attendance, building, and the number of staff members. I know, it sounds rather worldly, but it is true. It was thought the more staff you can hire, the more… Continue reading
Why are people serving an organization or institution whose real purpose is to serve them? The government that was born to protect our freedom, takes larger and larger chunks of our freedom and our income from us to feed its ever increasing appetite as it finds new ways to encroach… Continue reading
My first car was a 1966 Mustang with a standard transmission and a floor shifter. I loved to listen to that little sporty car roar as I ran it through the gears to impress my friends and enjoy that awesome surge of power. Just as if you play guitar, you… Continue reading
Church-going people are like everyone else. Some are very kind and some very cruel. Some are very loving and some very self-righteous. They are just people, but we tend to expect more of them because they wear the tag Christian. If becoming a Christian is just ascribing to certain mental… Continue reading
We saw Les Miserables last night. I didn’t know much about it. I did know it was a classic that had something to do with poverty, love, and the French Revolution. That’s it. Spurred on by the comments of Face Bookers who were deeply moved by watching it and a desire to… Continue reading
I am just going to come out and say it, church is broken. So are several other societal institutions. They just aren’t cutting it anymore. As institutions age they forget the reason for their existence of serving people. Eventually, the mission is traded for maintenance. The goal of serving people is subtly… Continue reading
I love the church. What’s not to love about a community representing Christ to the world? It’s a beautiful ideal, even though the reality is, all too often, a different picture. There is a huge potential in the thousands of churches across our land, but the church needs to make… Continue reading
Contrasts: We have sacred creeds, sacred places of worship, sacred objects, and sacred leaders or clergy. Jesus had none of it. We are part of a subculture that insulates us from real life. Jesus talked about a different way of living real life. We obsess over trying to be better… Continue reading
Why do we remember our wounds more than our encouragements? Maybe, it’s because there are more of them. I don’t know, but I do know they tend to get deeply etched in our souls. Maybe, it is because we walk a delicate balancing act in our psyche between feeling “We… Continue reading
A cursory of the Gospels would lead you to believe that Jesus was doing everything he could think of to agitate the religious establishment of his day. He wasn’t the ultimate hippie or some sort of crazed rebel; he, of course, knew exactly what he was doing. He was defying man-made religious rules that… Continue reading
This post is part of a synchroblog on gratitude as a spiritual practice. The other contributions are listed at the end of this post. I don’t exactly feel like the most qualified person to write about gratitude. If the topic were complaining or ranting, I would be in more familiar territory. When… Continue reading
I have hit an awesome chapter in Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward and I am trying to unpackage it. Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationships that God wants to create with us. (pp. 56-57) I always thought of forgiveness as… Continue reading
This post is part of a synchroblog, entitled, Choosing my Religion. The participating writers are answering the question, “If you could change to any other religion in the world (other than Christianity), which would you choose and why?” The links to their contributions are posted at the end of this post. I am cheating. I… Continue reading
I wish Peter Faulk were still living and wearing his crumbled Colombo trench coat. I would love to hear him approach some church leaders at a convention and say, “Excuse me, sir. Just one more question. Did Jesus come to start a religion?” Religions have sets of beliefs that its… Continue reading
Many years ago, I heard a radio preacher say, the goal of the Christian life is to sin less. When I was young (and more optimistic) it made sense to me. After all, we are to become more like God and he is holy. So, we should, at least, be… Continue reading
One cannot help but see the stark contrast between Jesus and present day Christianity. It is almost as if they are two different faiths… one separated, cloistered, its own subculture; the other, on the streets, in the slums, and bars. One, trying to be holy through self-improvement and dissociation, the… Continue reading
John 12:12-19 Twenty years later, I remember the opening scene. Jesus is playing with the children, palm branches are being waved all over the place as the little ones sing and dance while running down the aisles of theater up to the stage. It is that festive, moving, celebratory picture that is my… Continue reading
When pressed to summarize what he required, Jesus said, love God and love your neighbor. Paul, the Apostle fleshed this out by saying that God wants living sacrifices. He is asking for a huge religious paradigm shift that calls for an end to people trying to appease God. He is… Continue reading
Do we learn best from our failures or our successes? I learn a lot from my failures. I should, because I rehearse them over and over. I learn what an incredible screw up I am. I throw some gasoline upon my ever smoldering sense of shame. I paralyze myself from moving forward… Continue reading
John 4: 43-54 There is a near resurrection in this passage from John’s biography of Jesus. It was a government official’s son who was near death. His distraught dad had come to Jesus pleading with him to travel to his town and heal his son, but instead Jesus said, “Go back… Continue reading
What difference would it make if Jesus did not rise from the dead? We would be following a martyr, instead of a victor. The church may never have developed without the reassurance of the resurrected Jesus. The message of his followers may have been one of revenge and bad news,… Continue reading
