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.
We all know Christmas is more about giving than receiving, yet the most significant Christmases of all for me are those where through giving I received more than I can describe or explain. There is a magical truth in the simple fact that there is no truly unselfish gift. People […]
I noted with some fascination the annual terrorizing of little children by a loud, aggressive man in a red and white suit. (yes, I mean Santa Claus) This wonderful, jolly, happy icon of Christmas is supposedly the sweetest mythical human being on the face of the planet, yet many children are […]
Every once in a while, I blog about something I consider a “no-brainer,” something so obvious (at least to me…) that I cannot fathom anyone disagreeing. But I am always wrong — there’s no such thing as a sure thing. Case in point: caring for the poor. The idea that […]
I have been following this year’s edition of the so-called “war on Christmas” with a mix of amusement and incredulity. Apart from Fox news and a few conservative-fundamentalist TV stations, I’m not hearing too much about it, but what I do hear and see boggles the imagination. My favorite this […]
Each year, early in December, my thoughts return to my hometown and to some of the significant memories of my young life. One signficant memory concerns one of those eccentric, colorful characters that seem to populate every small midwestern town. These people become accepted fixtures, even though they behave in […]
I read the article yesterday about two homeless Hungarian men who stand to inherit $6.6 billion dollars from their grandmother — of course they have to split it with a sister, but what’s a couple billion between family? Beyond it being one of those “made-for-holiday-TV” type fairy stories, it simply […]
Advent season — the four weeks preceding Christmas — is the launch of the Christian year. It is a significant time of preparation and anticipation. It frames the coming of the Messiah and reminds us how desperately God’s chosen people sought a savior. Everyone knows that, right? Well, not the […]
Something happened a few days ago that keeps pestering me. I made a presentation where I praised the work of a colleague and after the event ended a gentleman came up to me and said, “What you said lacked credibility.” Upon further conversation, I discovered that I didn’t lack credibility […]
What, precisely, are we looking forward to? We live in a culture of immediate gratification, and we already know how the story turns out. We’ve been here dozens of times before — after all, it happens every year. We have managed to layer cultural crust over the sacred celebration to […]
Four items hit in rapid succession that make me wonder what in the world is happening to Christmas? #1 — I listened to a “secularist” on one of the news channels rant against having to “be forced” to celebrate Christmas. He is heading a group calling for the absolute eradication […]
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