I am becoming more and more convinced that coffee shops are the new mission frontier. I stopped at Beans ‘n’ Creme in Sun Prairie this morning for my usual fix (nothing fancy, just plain old coffee…) and I saw a group of men all with their Bibles open having a […]
Nine years after the tragic attacks on 9/11, what have we learned? Have we learned to folly of fanatical expressions of our religious faith? Have we learned that turning whole cultures of people into an enemy is short-sighted and stupid? Have we developed a deeper awareness of other faith’s, extending […]
Okay, here’s an easy one: “and they’ll know we are Christians by our —– love idiocy hate bigotry I want to choose #1, but in light of the current news about an evangelical whack-job in Florida who wants to commemorate September 11 with the burning of the Koran, I am […]
On the cusp of the Labor Day weekend, a memory came to me of an odd — crazy — man in my neighborhood growing up who vehemently believed holidays were evil and unChristian. Harold McKeever was one of those perennial “old men” — my mother remembered him being old when […]
This is a common question: who do you think you are? I get it all the time — probably more than most because I speak my mind and I speak with conviction. I have gotten three different “who do you think you are” emails this week. Here are excerpts from […]
Since I was eight years old, the Green Lantern has been my favorite comic book hero. Test-pilot Hal Jordan was a normal Joe, picked to be the Green Lantern of sector 2814 (space surrounding our solar system). He wasn’t super-powered, but was given a ring that could create anything the […]
Forgive this personal digression, but I just noticed that United Methodeviations passed the 500,000 page views milestone recently. On the one hand, this boggles my mind. I realize that many hits come from “regulars” who check in frequently, so I have no delusions of reaching half a million people. I […]
George Steinbrenner died at 80. This news brought to mind a flurry of memories and images. When I was younger, I absolutely LOVED baseball. I followed the Big Red Machine in the 1970s and memorized volumes of stats and stories. There was something pure and fun and inspiring and simply […]
Well, Wisconsin Annual Conference, Session the 41st, ended yesterday. Tracking all my rookie mistakes — this being my first year organizing the agenda for conference in my role as DCM (Director of Connectional Ministries) — I can proudly say I only made a few, and a couple of them were of […]
Where is the power and energy at Annual Conference this year? I am not talking about any one Annual Conference — I’m talking about all of them. Is our energy toward building, creating, forming, bridging, healing, mending, bonding, uniting, and becoming? Or is it about conflict, controversy, contention, competition, factions, […]
United Methodeviations 