blasphemy (noun) — irreverent or disrespectful words or actions concerning God or sacred things. mediocrity (noun) — a state of poor or barely adequate quality; neither good nor bad. blasphemediocrity (noun) — the disrespect of God and the sacred by accepting barely adequate and/or poor quality standards of spiritual belief […]
In the competitive church market, where ministry heavyweights duke it out for supremacy with ever greater programmatic offerings, ever larger campuses, ever bigger high definition broadcast screens and quality technical equipment and expertise (I saw where a church in Georgia recently hired a production manager for $225,000 per year…), mid- […]
The Bible should not be used as a weapon. It should not be used as a legalistic dividing wall to separate the acceptable from the unacceptable. And it should never be used to justify hate, anger, ugliness, judgmentalism, prejudice, or evil.
I’ve received a number of emails and phone calls asking if I am going to weigh in on the GracePoint UMC/GracePoint Community Church (Wichita, KS) split story. Well, yes and no. I don’t know enough about the specific story to comment intelligently, but on the surface and in general this appears to […]
Worship Connection posted an interesting article by Shane Raynor this week, Reinventing Confirmation. As I read it, I experienced a strange ambivalence — agreeing with many of the observations Shane makes while feeling like something was missing. Some of the insightful points in the article challenge the “one size fits […]
A few years back, I was consulting with a district about revitalizing existing congregations and perhaps launching a new church start or two. Though it may seem obvious, my main question to the leadership of the district was, “Why?” Why do we want to revitalize struggling churches? Why start new […]
I received three emails today that I call “Chicken Little” messages. You know, the panicky ‘sky-is-falling’ folks who take every apocalyptic message as gospel fact. Somewhere, someone is marching out the old, tired chestnut that the United Methodist Church is dying and won’t be around in thirty or forty years. […]
A few year’s ago, I attended worship at a hot, new, up-and-coming congregation situated in a strip mall, eschewing anything smacking of “traditional” church (at least in The United Methodist system). We sang a lot of ‘contemporary’ tunes, saw a ‘post-modern’ dramatic interpretation of scripture (in mime and ‘liturgical’ dance) […]
For years, United Methodists have pledged to uphold the church by their “prayers, presence, gifts, and service.” Just this year a fifth promise was added — “witness.” It is a little problematic that we’ve added a fifth when we haven’t done a very good job with the first four — […]
It’s always nice to connect with your readers. Here’s an excerpt from an email I got in response to “The Path of Least Resistance Is Paved With Good Intentions,” You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I am lead pastor of an 11,000 member church, and we’re as […]
United Methodeviations 