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.
Kudos to Circuit Rider for the Nov./Dec./Jan. issue focusing on ministry with the poor. So many other voices share my conviction that ministry “with” is our future, rather than ministry “to” or “for” the poor (so I must be right). Of the Four Areas of Focus of The United Methodist […]
It’s tough having opinions. I love to write this blog, and I use it to share my perspectives — for what they’re worth. I try very hard to say that these are my views and nothing more. I often try to write in provocative, and sometimes controversial, ways for no […]
I had an odd experience yesterday. I stopped off for lunch on my way to Milwaukee at a Taco Bell for a “nourishing” meal, and was waited on by a young African-American woman. While I ate my lunch, the woman floated through the dining area handing out information so that […]
There are times that I am stunned to silence (not many, granted, but a few…) by my own denomination. I wonder what it is that we believe and what our witness to the world really is. The latest brick in the wall of incredulity came when I saw that William […]
For years I have been afraid to admit something. There is a sin in my life so dark and so reprehensible that I barely can admit it to myself. It is a nagging sin, and one that I know I should be ashamed of, but I am not. I know […]
One of the sidelights of the research I did into congregational vitality from 1999-2008 was the opportunity to identify and interview young pastors who were doing truly meaningful, serious, and innovative work in the church. Many of them were not lead pastors, but those who could specialize in youth, young […]
I had a long, boring conversation with one of our denominational mucky-mucks this week about our impending doom. He feels that I am unreasonably optimistic about the state of the church. (Obviously he hasn’t read everything I have written…) Two points in particular motivated his getting in touch with me: one, […]
“Why don’t you get more angry with people?” one of my new colleague’s asked me recently? “You get hammered by people on your blog and you never seem to tell them off.” There are a number of things wrong with this observation. First, I do get irritated, but it seldom […]
Is part of our problem that we make things too hard? Maybe the key to congregational health, strength, and vitality is well within our grasp, but we keep looking for some grand answer because the truth seems much to simple and easy. Over the weekend I went through some files […]
I read an article this last week that says our Council of Bishops approved a plan to make The United Methodist Church ten-year’s younger in a decade. I thought, “That can’t be right.” Just doing the math, we would need 70% of our existing over-50 membership to die or go […]
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