Twenty years ago, I was given a wonderful opportunity. A Vanderbilt seminary professor took ill and I was asked to fill in for almost five weeks in a class that explored, among other things, the liturgical year. It was one of the most freeing and enjoyable experiences of my life. […]
Within a day of one another, I received two messages asking for permission to use a Christmas song I wrote 34 years ago! I love the phrasing of the one request: “You came and preached at our church and brought that “gift song” a couple year’s ago. Do you still have that? […]
I know I am in the minority, but in a culture crazed for Christmas and Easter, my two favorite church holy-days are Pentecost and Maundy Thursday. I’ll get to Pentecost in about six weeks, but for now I want to think about what makes Maundy Thursday so significant for me. […]
If ever there were a more confusing claim, I don’t know what it is. Biblical preaching. In the past few months, I have encountered people who either complain that their pastor doesn’t “preach the Bible,” or proudly boast that they have a “Biblical preacher.” (One over 2000 years old…?) But […]
It never fails that when I am looking for something in particular, I manage to find something else I was looking for months ago. Such is the case with interview notes I took in Colorado, Iowa, and Connecticut with 20-60 year old spiritual seekers. These notes have been the missing […]
No one sets out to offer vacuous, insipid, superficial, or self-absorbed worship. Pastors and lay leaders both dedicate themselves to creating meaningful, spiritual and authentic worship experiences. Yet, at a gathering of 21-29 year olds who have “given up on church” that took place in 2007 , these were the top […]
We live in a Wiki world. A collaborative, evolving, and highly interactive way of creating and recreating reality. Facts and opinions merge to create a new kind of “flexible” truth. Wikipedia has transformed the way we think about information and the authority of the written word. Knowledge is built over […]
I sometimes get accused of being negative. Okay, fine, this post is definitely negative. However, it is not a blaming or accusing post. It is merely describing something bizarre and ugly — patchwork bodies of Christ, slapping together bits and pieces (s0me dead) to create a well-intentioned mockery of life. […]
Six year’s ago I worked with five Vanderbilt seminary students on a worship project. They attended dozens of Christian worship experiences in all sizes, shapes, forms, and cultures of United Methodist congregations, then we sat and “debriefed” each experience. One 27-year-old woman, Erin, an Episcopalian, made an unusual and provocative […]
I sat through another United Methodist worship service — this time bombarded by thumping, lively praise music extolling how awesome, moist, and shiny Jesus is. (If you’ve experienced ‘contemporary’ praise music, you know what I mean…) The energy was high, it was the theology that was missing. Everything was simple and […]
United Methodeviations 