Negative energy is seductive and strangely appealing. In The United Methodist Church we have established a history of focusing on our decline and failures. For the short-sighted and faithless, how many members we have lost is more important than how many members we have. For the fatalist and facile, what […]
Are we really all too busy to spend time with God? I was in a situation recently where one group was bashing another group and I innocently asked if they had ever gotten together to pray. You might have thought I suggested they mate with animals. The idea that we […]
I remember a trip to New York City in November of 2001. I rode past hundreds of signs with three basic messages: thanks and gratitude to the fire fighters and law officers, heart-wrenching pleas for information about lost/missing loved ones, and hate messages against a slew of foreigners. These three emotions defined the […]
One key to our future is the way we choose to deal with one another, and I emphasize the word choose. Often, we prefer to ignore the fact that we choose to react or respond to others as we do. I’ll use myself as an example. The fact is, no one […]
We all have a very simple decision to make: will we build or will we destroy. Now, simply making this decision doesn’t guarantee anything — many who choose to build and create don’t actually accomplish much, but at least they try. But those who choose to destroy — or simply […]
I will make a prediction that isn’t much of a prediction. It is a conjecture based on our current state of indecision, cluelessness, and self-defeating choices. Within the next few months some well-intentioned, short-sighted “leader” in our denomination will present a proposal for the consolidation and/or elimination of the general […]
Disclaimer up front: don’t hold me to the veracity of the terms I am going to use. I am thinking out loud using terms and concepts I think I remember from a Philosophy lecture from my freshman year of college in 1976. I apologize in advance for everything I mis-remember… […]
I am back from Annual Conference (and a few days off to recuperate…). My inbox is packed with mail from people who loved this year’s conference, hated this year’s conference, were proud of this year’s conference, were ashamed by this year’s conference, were excited by the delegation we elected to […]
Two of my colleagues have recently returned from renewal retreats, and it reminds me again how very critical spiritual self-care is for leaders, both clergy and lay. I conducted a variety of studies on clergy wellness, morale, self-care, renewal and spiritual practice when I worked for the General Board of […]
I am not (generally) a fatalist, especially when it comes to God. I do not envision a God with too much time on his/her anthropomorphized hands, idly messing with human beings — poking here and there to see what jumps, steering a tornado into one group instead of another, giving […]
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