I am the Assistant to the Bishop in the Wisconsin Conference of The United Methodist Church, husband of my beautiful wife, Barbara, dad to my fantastic son, Josh, step-dad to my phenomenal son, Greg, author of fourteen 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.
I have been deeply interested in the plight of Syrian refugees and the impact we are seeing on the whole immigration discussion/debate at all levels of our U.S. culture. For the most part, the general responses have been grounded in fear, suspicion, anxiety and a knee-jerk parochialism. People are worried, […]
As I get older, memory plays tricks, so I may be remembering this wrong, but a favorite Hebrew phrase of mine is hakarat harov, meaning “attending to the good” (I think…). It always comes to mind as I prepare for Thanksgiving, and I sometimes wonder what life is like for […]
I unearthed an old file from my GBOD (General Board of Discipleship; now, Discipleship Ministries) days, and I discovered an article I wrote that was never published. It focused on interviews with pastors, district superintendents, bishops, authors, and other key movers-and-shakers in The United Methodist Church, and it raised a […]
I was in conversation with some of my colleagues about the state of The United Methodist Church. We each took a Post-It® Note and wrote what we thought was the most pressing need/critical issue facing the church. Most of the notes were about declining numbers — not enough new members, […]
In all my years, I have yet to meet anyone who is right 100% of the time, or even 100% right at any time. Part of the human condition is that we operate from a partial perspective — we see in a glass darkly, as it were. Yet, we all […]
A young pastor took exception to a recent post of mine that indicated I believe unconditional love should be unconditional. Her question to me confounded and alarmed: “Don’t you think we cheapen the gospel when we love people we shouldn’t love?” I pressed her to identify whom she felt Christians […]
An interesting and somewhat distressing thing happened this morning that gives me cause to pause. I was having coffee at a sidewalk table, sitting near a dozen other people, mostly my own age or older (so, all over 57…). A young, fairly hefty woman with her maybe three-year-old child, sauntered up […]
