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.
Like everything else in popular media, sensation sells when it comes to religion in the United States. And also like the popular media, the product shared with the public is shaped to “make news.” Good thing? Bad thing? Doesn’t really matter. What matters is, how do we cut through all […]
One day last month, I sat down and sifted through a mounting stack of articles on my desk. I found a number of articles on ‘mega-churches’ all published within a few days of each other. What was most striking was that they were saying incredibly different things. USA Today talked […]
New month, new stuff. Check out: Best Books review of Generation to Generation by Edwin Freidman Buzz highlights the film Lars and the Real Girl (you gotta see it…) and the books and TV series — The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Generosity is the Fruit of the Month in […]
During the 1990s and early 2000s, the General Board of Discipleship championed an effort to get The United Methodist Church to focus on ¶122 of the Book of Discipline — “The Process for Carrying Out Our Mission”or, the core process of our church. (This has also been called “Our Primary […]
Today is my birthday. One year ago I celebrated the half-century milestone, and at the time, things were looking fantastic. If 50 is the new 40, then life begins at the big five-oh, and for me it certainly started off that way. My book Vital Signs was doing great, and […]
The prefix “re” usually implies “again,” — return, turn again; review, view again; regain, gain again; reframe, frame again — so in the case of ReThink Church, the implication is that we have thought church through at least once. (It doesn’t work so well with regret, gret again?, rebate, bate again?, […]
In medical jargon, “to flatline” means “to die.” In educational and developmental circles, a “learning curve” indicates the challenge to recognize, adopt, and master new information. If something is simple, the learning curve is gently sloped and short, but if there is a lot of new and/or complex information to […]
Inclusiveness of the Church — The United Methodist Church is a part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ. The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth and that we are in ministry to all. All persons without regard to race, color, national origin, status or […]
Once upon a time, Christians in the United States rushed to build church buildings anywhere and everywhere they could — especially close to other churches who didn’t quite worship God the right way. There was a flurry of competition, with new “independent,” “non-denominational,” “alternative” groups joining the mix each and […]
Back when I was a lad, we used to celebrate Arbor Day — a day when we were simply encouraged to plant a tree. My Sunday school teacher — the ancient and slightly scary, Miss Hattie Hack — dutifully took us outside the first Sunday after Arbor Day to plant […]
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