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 seventeen 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.
I was talking with a small group of young adults about the potential of the church to transform the world. My argument was simple: if we would strive to find a meaningful way to engage 7 million plus United Methodists in the United States in some form of life-affirming missional […]
Humility, Judgment, Grace and Hope sat around a table playing poker. It was a high stakes game. Hope opened with a kind word, Humility self-deprecated (folded), Judgment raised both an eyebrow and an indelicate issue, and Grace called. Hope, as usual tried to draw to an inside straight, Humility buried […]
The powers that be at Marvel Comics decided to kill the Human Torch; at least the most recent incarnation (the Human Torch originally appeared in the 1940s as an android, then was reintroduced as a cocky young kid in 1962 as on quarter of the Fantastic Four). At least, for […]
¶252.7 Book of Discipline — The Church Council shall endlessly discuss the best course of action for the local congregation, finally approve it, and then present it to the whole church where it will inevitably be rejected after contentious debate. No, don’t bother looking this up in the Discipline. It […]
I remember strolling down a church hallway toward the Sunday school rooms, when I heard a sweet, little piping voice singing. At first I couldn’t make out the words. All I knew was it was the voice of a 4 or 5 year-old girl, and the tune was “We Are the […]
I was driving up to Appleton, Wisconsin the other day for a meeting and I tuned into a Christian radio station, where a very passionate young man was teaching a Bible study. His topic was “God’s Absolute Truth,” and he was making a case for there being one absolute, indisputable, […]
In college, I had three friends that I hung out with on a regular basis. Whenever we went anywhere, there was a brief battle over who would drive and who would ride shotgun. I am a very basic, boring driver — taking the easiest route, staying within 7 miles per […]
Recently, there was an interesting discussion being held by some clergy leaders in the Wisconsin Annual Conference about the “ideal congregation.” This brings to mind old conversations we used to have in New Jersey about “the perfect church.” In both cases, most of the answers revolve around faithful commitment on the […]
Within a twelve-hour period of time I had essentially the same conversation with three different pastors. The topic was leadership and the dilemma was unrealistic expectations. Here is the gist of each conversation: My church people talk all the time about how they want to change and grow, then they […]
I have worked with churches in a wide variety of settings and a wide range of relative states of health. From these experiences, a conceptual frame emerges that I have found helpful as a consultation tool, and as a way of understanding not only what is happening in a given […]
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