I am the lead pastor at People's United Methodist Church in the Wisconsin Conference of The United Methodist Church, husband of my beautiful wife, Barbara, dad to my fantastic son, Josh and his wife Caroline, step-dad to my phenomenal son, Greg, his wife Hannah and our fabulous/glorious/perfect granddaughter Evie, author of seventeed books on spirituality, stewardship, congregational development, research, and spiritual gifts discovery, and an advocate for a more loving, inclusive church for the 21st century and beyond.
Yesterday, I had the great honor to launch a new learning academy in our annual conference — something we have been talking about for a long time, but for a variety of reasons couldn’t get launched earlier. We are attempting a conference-wide, ongoing Leadership Learning Academy for clergy and laity […]
With this week’s lectionary reading from Galatians, I am receiving numerous requests for the use of this hymn. Consider this express, written permission to reproduce and use. Click on the hymn for a downloadable, reprintable .pdf. (Oh, and my name is Dan R. Dick, not Dan K. Dick…)
One of the major changes made to the Wisconsin Annual Conference gathering each June is the addition of a learning day. It is ironic how much resistance I met when I first suggested the idea (“that’s not what people come to conference for,” “people won’t want to add an extra […]
I have been reading some interesting studies recently that confirm research I’ve done in The United Methodist Church on morale, satisfaction and contentment: our happiest people are happy by choice, not by chance. This is a hard message for people who live from a basic victim mentality who feel the […]
Okay, I hate hokey little mnemonic devices — even when they work. It is something in my wiring, and I hate it even more when I come up with them, so I apologize in advance. But as I have been preparing a number of presentations recently, I note with some […]
I am writing today from Atlanta (Georgia, in case you were wondering) at the conclusion of the three-day Ecumenical Korea Peace Conference. This has been an amazing — and deeply educational — few days. I know the basics on the post-WWII Korean history — told from the United States perspective. I […]
Every once in a while I strike a chord — I have received emails daily about the past couple posts on “mature” Christian spirituality. It seems everyone wants to use their own personal spiritual level as the definition of maturity — which is very normal and human. If we could conceive […]
The Christian faith is about growth and maturing. In recent posts, I’ve talked about “mature” faith, and the response has been interesting. Many frame the term “mature” as judgmental, exclusive, and unkind — when compared to “less mature” or “immature.” But developmental and qualitative growth — improvement, strengthening, seasoning, evolving — […]
I won’t share the convoluted audit trail that leads to this post, but a series of unrelated incidents all point me back to this particular story. When I was in Nashville, I related to a young, well-meaning Christian who went from ultra-committed and ultra-pious to uber-atheist in the blink of […]
Forgive the annoying “back when I was a boy…” beginning to this reflection, but, back when I was a boy a Lego kit consisted of a box of white, black, yellow, blue and red bricks that came in eight different sizes. You could make anything your imagination could conceive of, […]
