One of my best friends growing up played tennis once a month and could never understand why he didn’t get any better. He would compete against opponents who played four or five times a week, and it drove him crazy that he couldn’t beat them. The idea of practice and […]
Friedrich Schleiermacher offered an interesting, and at the time controversial, challenge to teachers and preachers of the Christian faith in 1811 when he proclaimed that “Christianity needs to be researched and taught.” His Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, pointed out that much of what Christians believed […]
Notice the gun imagery in the title? Does this mean I believe in gun violence? Does this mean I am insensitive to the lives torn apart by firearms in this country? Do you think I support torture? In the past couple weeks, some survey information was shared that indicates that […]
My definition of Christian education is (and has been for over thirty years): Information needed for formation that leads to transformation. Christian education was a central focus of the research I did on congregational vitality (1999-2006) and I found quite a bit of evidence that confirmed the value of such […]
Yes, I know “thrival” isn’t a word, but it should be. We spend so much time in the church talking about ‘survivial’ and ‘revival’ that we forget to talk about what it would look like if we truly thrived. Last year, “…for the transformation of the world” got officially added […]
Writers and researchers who look at “the state of the church” often fall into the erroneous and unhelpful fallacy of reducing our faith to the simplistic dualism of “churched” and “unchurched.” This ignores the fact that many church members are Christian in name only, while a large and growing segment […]
Among my greatest disappointments, not being able to follow-through on the UM Worship Patterns project is near the top. I have not engaged in a more interesting — and potentially helpful — project in all my time in research. This article is a companion to Theology of Worship? and Preacher […]
I’m no Fox News, but I do attempt to be fair and balanced. This past week I struck a chord with a significant number of people with my Igniting Misery and Taking It All Too Seriously posts. One subtext of both posts is that some of our decision-makers in the […]
Answers are over-rated. Good questions beat right answers every time. The reason? Rarely in real life is there ever a single “right” answer. There are good answers. There are workable answers. There are reasonable answers. And in most cases there are multiple answers. Answers are easy, but asking the right […]
This afternoon (May 5) I received an email that really got my gears grinding. It was a personal note from someone of position and influence in The United Methodist Church. I respect the opinion. But three things were said in the missive that I can’t let go of. And so […]
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