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.
There is a linguistic condition called disfluency that is characterized by disruptions in speech — long pauses, uhms, urrs, likes, and simply allowing sentences and thoughts drift away in unfinished forms. In its strongest forms (often referred to as dysfluency) it is an inability to articulate complete thoughts and concepts. […]
A woman from northern Wisconsin engaged me in an email exchange about recent posts I have written (as well as an old post against gun violence), challenging my thinking (hopefully in positive and productive ways). She raises four points (with which I disagree, and will attempt to explain here): Negativity […]
Hope is under siege. Corporate media, social media, party politics, populism, and mass marketing are all undermining and denigrating hope. Hopelessness is the flavor of the day. Wildfires burn at hope, floods inundate hope, pandemic infects hope, politicians mock hope, and corporate America redefines hope as hunger, greed, and dissatisfaction […]
When it happens to you or someone you care about, it becomes a completely different story. I got a phone call from an old frenemy, a very conservative colleague from my Nashville days, who I sparred with on every social, cultural, and political issue raised during the Clinton/W. Bush years. […]
My little pun title works on three levels: 1) a small portion of unappetizing food, 2) issued in times of war, and 3) the word ration used to mean “reason.” So, I am offering a small morsel of thought to a church at war with itself, that offers a slightly […]
When I was a teenager, my cross country coach took us up to the Indiana Dunes and had us run sprints up the white sand dunes. Not only was it painful and exhausting then, but almost everyone I ran with (literally) in those days developed chronic ankle/knee/hip/back problems over the […]
Emerging from a global pandemic, many people feel that life has been happening to them, rather than them feeling any strong sense of control over their own lives. Yet, even when external conditions are in seismic upheaval, we still have control over our responses. We make choices all the time […]
In Greek theater, both tragedy and comedy, “indecision” or “quandary” was personified by dubitatio. In tragedy, dubitatio faced life or death decisions, crippled into a vacillating loop of second guessing about which option to choose. In comedy, dubitatio parodied the simple ordinary choices (which clothes to wear, which salad dressing […]
As a church consultant, one of the most frequent suggestions I made to church leadership boards and councils was to declare a moratorium on negativity. Some thought this was cute, many more found it funny, but all sobered up when they realized I was serious. Our Christian witness is being […]
What follows is a conflation of three different recent conversations, but my responses were consistent within all three. I merge them for the sake of the message, so if anyone involved reads this and thinks, “I don’t remember saying that,” they are probably right. “Uhm, someone left a negative comment […]
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