Tag: learning

  • How To Get the Most Out Of Church

    How To Get the Most Out Of Church

    Of course I love church. That goes without saying. But I don’t always love the church. I don’t always love the way we do church or the way we incarnate the church. It sometimes gets to me and drains me. Some of that is me. But a lot of it is the way we approach church as church members…

  • Wishing to See

    Wishing to See

    Learning in the absence of Jesus Lent 5B  |  John 12:20-33 Wishing to See “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” It is a deceptively simple moment. We’d almost overlook it. These people come to Philip looking for Jesus. Philip goes to Andrew and they both go to Jesus. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” they…

  • Voices Are Found

    Voices Are Found

    I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told the importance of finding one’s voice as a writer. Find your voice they say. then people will really hear you. or beat down your door. or will see the authentic you. I’ve always taken these instructions to heart. I’ve always tried. Always writing in…

  • Childproofing Church

    Order, stumbling blocks, and what real Christian community looks like a Homily for  Proper 18 A  |  Text: Matthew 18:15-20   what we mean by sin When Jesus speaks to the disciples in this passage, He speaks of sin against each other. This isn’t so much fault-finding, which we all do so easily, but sin-naming.…

  • What does Jesus communicate?

    What does Jesus communicate?

    I have this feeling that we all live with a paradox about Jesus. On the one hand, we feel confident, every one of us, that we could actually answer that question What Would Jesus Do? And, at the same time, when pressed on what Jesus’s most important message is, we shuffle our feet, look at…

  • Teaching Mixed Messages: love, violence, and more Walking Dead

    The Michigan Militia It was the late 90’s and several militia groups, most famously the “Michigan Militia” had bloomed in the thumb-area of Michigan, just down the road from my college. The populist rage that would a decade later birth the Birthers and the Tea Party was a post-Waco response to a perceived lack of…

  • The Missing Word: how to not say No

    My daughter wrapped me around her finger before she could grab things and twist them. Before she could even see more than two feet in front of her face. She lights up my world when she greets me at the door and when I pick her up from school. For her, I argue with the…