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.
George Steinbrenner died at 80. This news brought to mind a flurry of memories and images. When I was younger, I absolutely LOVED baseball. I followed the Big Red Machine in the 1970s and memorized volumes of stats and stories. There was something pure and fun and inspiring and simply […]
Generally, a vision is a positive thing — something worth pursuing, something people want. Promised Land. Land flowing with milk and honey. City on a hill. Shining light. Good thing. At its best, the church is all about vision. Or, it should be. Too often we are about division instead […]
On a not-too-infrequent basis, Christian commentators will rant and rail against secular and non-Christian forces conspiring to destroy our faith. Any given day, the Muslims or the scientists or the atheists or the Jews or the secular humanists or the liberals or the homosexuals or Planned Parenthood or the… you […]
I received three different requests for this article in the past two weeks, so I am reprinting it here (from February 2009) No Christian leader that I know ever sets out to do an “average” job for God. Oh, sure there are a few jaded pastors who are just counting […]
Want to know a secret? The key to congregational vitality isn’t growth, it’s balance. This shouldn’t be a secret — and it isn’t for about 10% of our United Methodist congregations — but sadly it is for the vast majority. Ever since the late 20th century when we lost our […]
We’ll take anybody. We don’t even require membership classes anymore. Nobody has the time, and most of the people who join our church are coming from other churches, anyway. We ask at the end of every service if there is anyone who wishes to join, they come forward, and we […]
I used a hymn at this year’s annual conference that I wrote the words to about 20 years ago when I was charged with merging two congregations that didn’t really want to merge. There was loads of competition and strife, so I wrote this song as a call for unity. […]
I have been working on a sermon for this coming weekend and I have been doing a lot of thinking about the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-23. Spiritual gifts, graces and fruit have been an interest of mine for some time (check out Equipped for Every […]
Well, Wisconsin Annual Conference, Session the 41st, ended yesterday. Tracking all my rookie mistakes — this being my first year organizing the agenda for conference in my role as DCM (Director of Connectional Ministries) — I can proudly say I only made a few, and a couple of them were of […]
Where is the power and energy at Annual Conference this year? I am not talking about any one Annual Conference — I’m talking about all of them. Is our energy toward building, creating, forming, bridging, healing, mending, bonding, uniting, and becoming? Or is it about conflict, controversy, contention, competition, factions, […]
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