Praise God I never quite saw the memo that told us what praising God really means. All I can figure is joy has something to do with it and there is singing somewhere in the definition. I got the memo last Sunday. It’s from Isaiah. Took till chapter 43 but there it was. The first […]

BHAG Big Hairy Audacious Goal. That’s what BHAG stands for. I came across the term while attending a CREDO conference in southern Indiana in early 2011. CREDO is a denomination-sponsored week-long program for mid-career clergy that helped us look at our lives and ministry in a holistic way. I loved it. I didn’t want to […]

Route Change Funny how we have an idea on which way to go but we often don’t get there, and if we do it is by an entirely different route. Just ask Paul. One night he has a vision which clearly states he should go to Macedonia and help a man there and he ends […]

Visions “A new heaven and a new earth” is quite the vision for a world seized by the might of Rome. We might think we know the Rome of the New Testament but there is little to compare it to our experience. In the words of Diana Butler Bass in A People’s History of Christianity, […]

It just feels good to say. Hallelujah! It is the Hebrew word for Praise Yahweh (hallelu is praise and jah is Yahweh). Allelulia is the Greek and Latin cousin, and they seem to be used interchangeably. Take your pick. But what do we do with them? What do we do with a hallelujah that sings […]

Close to the end of Jesus’ life and ministry, an unnamed woman entered the house of Simon the Leper and poured costly nard over the head of Jesus from an alabaster jar.  As far as I can find, this is the only time in the gospels when someone intentionally does something for Jesus.  When did […]

Robin Meyers and his wife Shawn spent the weekend with us. Robin led a Saturday morning workshop, preached Sunday morning, and led an informal discussion with folks in between services. They both were a delight and I found his ideas fascinating and provocative. That is why I was a bit taken aback, and saddened, when […]

My Mom passed away Tuesday morning, just two months shy of her 90th birthday and after too many years of dealing with Parkinson’s. I said goodbye to her last Friday, as I had done several times before when I left after a visit, but I knew this time would be my last, hoping upon hope […]

I ended my sermon with Jesus going away to a lonely place. The Gospels cite several instances where Jesus simply left whatever situation he was in. He didn’t wait for something to finish. He didn’t work until midnight and watch the last newly-sighted blind person walk carefully and joyfully into the darkness, then take his […]

The applause still rings in my ears. It was the applause and the standing ovation during the State of the Union address when President Obama proclaimed that we were the most powerful nation in the world, spending more on our military than the next five (or was it more?) countries combined. What would Isaiah say […]