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Why That Thing You Tell Your Pastor On Sunday Morning Might Not Get Done
1. My body got up hours before my brain. 2. For pastors, leading worship is exhausting. 3. And sometimes, so is coffee hour. 4. Maybe I’m running late because a small child crawled into bed and I had to pretend to be sleeping so that they’d get back to sleep before I get up. 5.…
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Priest as Jesus?
I don’t know what those first followers did after he was gone. I know they cried, some wailed, all wondered what to do. Where to go. Who they are now. If we follow him, and these other, really smart, highly educated, super powerful leaders don’t like what our leader (is he really the Messiah?) had to say,…
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Pastor or Priest?
My friend and teacher, the Rev. Dr. D. Jay Koyle teaches that identity and worship is connected with belief and choice. We make decisions for our personal piety and liturgical acts from a place of understanding the purpose behind the choice. Much of our tradition is inherited through piety and local custom, rather than historical…
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Why priests must learn to code
I’m generally not one to encourage business models in church: we’re generally saturated with them already. Or, more to the point, we apply them indiscriminately, with the idea that churches in general need to function more efficiently and take on a more corporate strategy. My own denomination, The Episcopal Church, did this with gusto in…
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The Tie or the Collar
You have a preference. Everyone does. You want your pastor or priest to look a certain way. You know other people have a preference, too. Their preference may match yours. It may not. You know the pastor or priest has her preference. Hopefully you care what that is. The question is not so much whether…
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At the end of a very long week
I have decided to end the week like I begin it. Or how I hoped to begin the week. At Starbucks, drinking coffee, writing. One activity I know brings fulfillment and hope for me. Of course, this week was different. It didn’t begin with writing and planning and organizing. It began with a phone call.…
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I Am Not Your Father: the challenge of the postmodern priesthood
As a kid, I don’t remember my Dad being called Father Tom. That doesn’t mean there weren’t quite a few people who did. Or used the more proper Fr. Downs. Sometimes it was Pastor, Preacher, or the grammatically inappropriate Reverend. Most of my life, as I try to recall it, my Dad went by his…
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Why I’m Lousy at Vacation
This is what I discovered this summer. I really am lousy at vacation. I knew I was bad at it. I just didn’t know I was this bad. I don’t like the time away. I don’t like the extra burden before I go and after I return. I have trouble disconnecting my brain from my…