The first winter storm blew in yesterday, blanketing our world in white. Although our churches are moving into Advent, and trying to restrain congregational urges to match consumerist hype that we are in the Christmas season, my mind still drifts …
The Bible in Six Words
19 months ago, I officiated at my doctor’s funeral. Technically he was not my primary care doctor at the time of his death, since he had retired a few years earlier. But I could not meet him anywhere without considering …
The Goal
The discernment process marks the initial step towards rejuvenating the church. Rather than overlooking the existing strengths in the church’s cultural framework, the renovation process celebrates these sturdy foundations, propelling us towards a future brimming with hope and divine purpose. …
The Death of Hope Part 4 The Remixed
By and large, today’s new cults of and for the Remixed are what I will call “intuitional religions.” By this, I mean that their sense of meaning is based in narratives that simultaneously reject clear-cut creedal metaphysical doctrines and institutional …
The Death of Hope Part 3 Strange Rites
I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice … It’s just trying to love …
The Death of Hope (Part 2)
If there is no hope, there is no future. In his 1992 novel The Children of Men (Made into a movie of the same name in 2006), P.D. James tells of a future where no children are born. James insists …
The Death of Hope (Part 1)
“…there’s an extraordinary wave of depression and anxiety in teens and adults, for example. There was one analysis that said that 44 percent of American 8th, 10th, and 12th graders report feeling, at times, that, quote, ‘my life is not …
Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places
What do you love? What does your congregation love? These are essential questions to dig into because St. Augustine states, “Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.” Putting it another way, our congregations do what they love to …
