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.
The tragic results of this spirit (looking for quick and easy shortcuts in our faith) are all about us: shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic […]
This past week I have been embroiled in discussion and debate about our openness to highly intelligent, well-educated people in our United Methodist Church. First, I have been surprised by the number of people from our churches who think poorly of smart people — assuming that they deserve anything that happens […]
Super Bowl 44 — over. I am a huge Colts fan, but even I can’t be unhappy with the Saints victory. Who could begrudge New Orleans anything? I am delighted for every Saints fan everywhere. I wish I could feel as good about the Super Bowl ads, but I don’t. […]
I note with dismay that your blog is consistently critical of the church. It doesn’t seem fair or balanced to continuously pick at flaws while ignoring the good. While we certainly have problems, there is little benefit in dwelling on them all the time. I don’t care to be made […]
All I did was ask questions. People would make broad statements and I would ask, “How do you know?” People would claim supernatural and paranormal explanations and I would ask, “Is there another explanation?’ Attributes would be given to God that didn’t come from the Bible and I would ask, […]
I have a special relationship with my GPS. It’s a Garmin and her name is Greta. Like most couples, we have moments when we don’t see eye to eye. Greta wants me to go one way, and I choose to go another. Every time I disregard Greta’s sage advice, she […]
This has been one of those interesting days where one theme keeps recurring no matter where I turn. A gentleman stopped me this evening to tell me how displeased he is with my blog — that he has, in the past, found value in my writing, but that my blog […]
What is our problem? How have we developed such a narrow-minded faith that we cannot interact with people who believe differently with any kind of tact, grace or kindness? Why can we not “offer an invitation” to know our God without turning it into a defiant line in the sand? […]
An adequate life, like Spinoza’s definition of an adequate idea, might be described as a life which has grasped intuitively the whole nature of things, and has seen and felt and refocused itself to this whole. An inadequate life is one that lacks this adjustment to the whole nature of […]
Sometimes it takes a crisis. Sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy to remind us what’s important. In a week of unremitting sadness for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, it has been oddly refreshing to turn to United Methodist information sources and not read about our institutional plight, but […]
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