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.
This morning’s USA Today has a front-page story below the fold on bullying among teens. It appears that bullying is widespread, and apparently acceptable. 52% of students have hit someone in anger in the past year. 50% admit that they have bullied, and 47% report being the victim of bullying. […]
A conversation at the Commission on Religion & Race in Milwaukee this past weekend brought to mind three encounters — two from my time in Tennessee and one since coming to Wisconsin. About eight years ago, I got into a conversation about peace, and what it means to be a […]
I am attending the North Central Jurisdiction CORR (Commission on Religion and Race) learning event this weekend in Milwaukee. As I gather in this place with these people I notice three things about myself. First, I can breathe. I don’t feel at all constrained or worried about what others might […]
I am becoming more and more convinced that coffee shops are the new mission frontier. I stopped at Beans ‘n’ Creme in Sun Prairie this morning for my usual fix (nothing fancy, just plain old coffee…) and I saw a group of men all with their Bibles open having a […]
I haven’t been able to blog for a couple of weeks due to an unusually heavy work/travel load, and an unusually large response to a recent post. Every once in a while I will write something that I believe is a “no-brainer” — it’s not overly profound or insightful, but […]
I received an interesting email from a pastor today who “followed my advice” and raised questions about expectations and accountability in the church. He asked the “what is the church?” and “what is the church for?” questions, and zeroed in on what our membership vows really mean. He was shocked […]
A pressing concern of many of our congregations is a lack of funds. I know you’re surprised, but money is a concern in many of our local churches. But, I’m going to let you in on a simple, yet very important secret. There is a simple, low-cost solution to most […]
I may get blasted on this. That’s okay. I am sharing almost twenty years of similar responses here, and I think we — especially clergy — need to listen. Laity across the United Methodist Church are sending four messages loud and clear: prayer, stewardship, evangelism and Bible are NOT being […]
Meeting with a group of clergy last Thursday, the conversation turned to prayer and the idea of teaching people to pray. There was general consensus that prayer is a good thing, but it became quickly evident that most in the group view prayer as something we “have” to do rather […]
Nine years after the tragic attacks on 9/11, what have we learned? Have we learned to folly of fanatical expressions of our religious faith? Have we learned that turning whole cultures of people into an enemy is short-sighted and stupid? Have we developed a deeper awareness of other faith’s, extending […]
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