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
“Dad” Lewis, the owner of the hardware store in town, does not have many weeks left. He is dying of lung cancer. He has always been a man of few words who was not known for his compassion. His faithful wife is worn out and exhausted from taking care of… Continue reading
Assumptions “It seems to me Democrats (Liberals) want to help people and Republicans (Conservatives) want to help people help themselves.” That’s how it was summed up by someone who was, I think, pretty wise. But when I am in a bad mood, it seems to me that liberals are paternalistic… Continue reading
This post is part of the March Synchroblog: Guns and God. Links to the other posts are listed at the end the article. Abuse I am really tired of people trying to co-op God to support their political position. Guns and God do not go together. Gun control and God… Continue reading
I am just now sending a book to the editor that should have been published by last October. There are some reasons for the delay, like, travel and other pressing events. But the main reason that it is not published is me. Honestly, sometimes I think it is crap. Sometimes,… 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
My Uncle Bob (John R. Hager) the oldest of my Dad’s four siblings, passed away last Friday. The “R” is for Robert and everyone called him “Bob.” I have only recently learned of some of the details his full life. After high school, he helped build a naval base in the… 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
Why is “customer service” so often the worse possible place on earth to receive decent service? Why are we allowing our technology to cause us to avoid having a real, live conversation with another human being? Why are the very best moments in life usually unplanned? Why is there such… 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
For far, far too long, Christians, especially Evangelicals were known for what they were against. They were against abortion, homosexuality, and most anything that made them uncomfortable. Is killing unborn babies bad? Yes, it is. Is it unforgivable? Is it “the platform” for Christianity? No, on both accounts. Following Jesus… Continue reading
Women are not from Venus and men are not from Mars. We are human beings, brothers and sisters, associates, neighbors, and yes, friends from the same planet. As a pastor in the eighties and nineties, I was taught to follow Billy Graham’s advice and never be alone with a woman… 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
Since I was a pastor for all of those years, since I am the age I am, and since I am currently hanging out with my parents at a hospital, I have been thinking bout elderly people and aging. Having been around so many members of The Greatest Generation, I… Continue reading
Time flies when you’re having fun! A watched pot never boils. Everything takes longer than you think it will. We have all of these quaint little sayings about time. Really time is nothing more than incremental measurements of our existence. It’s unrelenting as symbolized by the ticking of the… Continue reading
I am sitting here is the darkened breakfast room of The Holiday Inn Express adjacent to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. It’s almost eleven at night. I am out here so my mom has a dark and quiet room to try to get a head start… 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
The war on Christmas is all the “rage” in some conservative and Christian circles. Their cry is to keep Christ in Christmas. Everybody knows that our cultural celebration of the holiday involves a lot of traditions that do not overtly express the origins and deepest meaning of the season. I… Continue reading
We love having our family around us at Christmas. Every year for forty-three years we have had a Christmas Eve gathering that originally included our kids, then their wives, then the grandkids, then the great grandkids, and occasionally other family members and friends who need a place to feel loved. Some… Continue reading
Just thinking about the images makes me crazy. A twenty-year-old young man shot his mom in the face, then using her guns blasted his way into an elementary school and mowed down twenty-six people, most of them six and seven year old before taking his own life. The tears are… Continue reading
The call came when I least expected it. I had just finished a huge late season window cleaning job and came home exhausted and I was falling asleep while opening the mail. Then Patty called. She said. “It’s time. He’s coming early.” In a daze, I replied, “Time? Coming?” Being… Continue reading
We’re wimps! We, the people of the United States of America are a sorry lot in the way we exercise our citizenship. I am a wimp, too, but I am beginning to train to be a better citizen. We vote based on superficial information that has been carefully engineered by… Continue reading
It was one of those times in life when everything else seems to stop and all of the important and pressing matters are no longer important or pressing. I remember it like it happened in slow motion. Patty and I were walking along main street in the Kansas City suburb… 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
You probably are aware that Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, Jovan Belcher murdered his girlfriend who was the mother of his three-month-old daughter just minutes before driving to the Chiefs’ facility where he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, taking his own life. In the parking lot,… Continue reading
“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.” – Simone de Beauvoir Not thinking is easier than thinking. Believing as we are told is easier than testing those beliefs. Finding a tribe (political party, denomination, unnamed segment of… 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
I have to tell you what happened while we were in St. Paul enjoying Thanksgiving, our grandson’s birthday, and our daughter and son-in-law’s anniversary, all between last Wednesday and this Sunday. First, I asked a neighbor to take care of our crazed cat and watch over the place while we… Continue reading
I usually think about values in terms of my obituary, what I would want people to remember about me when I am gone. I would like them to say: He was real. Pretension makes me nauseous, and sometimes I am nauseating, but my goal is to be real. Being real gives other… 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
By the time you read this Election Day 2012 will over. Thank God! However, I am writing on Tuesday morning. Patty and I have already squiggled in our ovals and fed our ballots into the optical scanner by 7:30 this morning. Either Barak Obama will be rehired or he will… Continue reading
I am seriously moved, definitely warmed and inspired as I just finished a new novel by Doug Worgul, entitled, Thin Blue Smoke. These characters got into my heart and let me know I still have a heart. They’re real and flawed. Some of them have had some really bad breaks… Continue reading
And I thought we were polarized during the last election cycle. Your neighbor puts up an Obama or Romney yard sign and you think, I thought he was an okay, but apparently he is an idiot. One of your Facebook “friends” writes about what an ass Obama or Romney is… Continue reading
While we are overwhelmed with political propaganda and endless chatter from the talking heads and spin doctors, there is not enough attention given to three foundational questions that should affect how we vote. The answers to these questions should be applied to every governmental program. Is it the role of… Continue reading
If I had a magic wand, here are three things I would fix in our political system. The Electoral College would be gone. When you vote for the candidate for your choice for the President of the United States, you are really voting for your state’s electors. All states, except Maine… Continue reading
I usually listen to talk radio streaming on my iPhone as I get ready in the mornings. This morning I began with my usual WPR (Wisconsin Public Radio) program doing their review of political happenings for the week with guests from the Democrat and Republican perspectives. Facts were irrelevant to… Continue reading
My faith is unconventional to say the least. I have been a pastor for over twenty years, but I no longer “go to church.” I have read and studied each book of the Bible and I have taught several of them in great detail, but I don’t read it much… Continue reading
Getting older and having little to lose by expressing my opinion, has some real advantages. I have a lot of ideas and values that are very different than those I embraced in the first half of life. I like to write about these ideas once and awhile to help be… Continue reading
This is a comment in response to a post on another site (though it also posted here on glennhager.com). It covers several issues, so you would understand it better if you the post and the comment I am responding to. Here is the link to the post, so you can… Continue reading
As I was surfing Facebook, I saw an acquaintance’s claim that Romney was trying to take us back to the days of Ozzie and Harriet. It was a curious response to the debate. Some conservatives might look on those times as the good old days and some liberals regard then… 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
