Everything That Rises

Ten years ago today, I was ordained to the gospel ministry, an affirmation of my calling to serve Christ and his Church through the practices of pastoral, congregational ministry. If I knew then what I knew now… It hasn’t been easy, but then again, I knew it wouldn’t be. Like most things in life, people can tell you a hundred times a day the way things will be, but there’s still something within you that wants to prove them all wrong, something within you that wants to triumph over the challenges of the past and straighten out the difficulties of former generations. I suppose we might call that hope. I listened to mentors tell me about being threatened by church members, how they had been verbally and physically assaulted in their offices, sanctuaries, and church parking lots. I listened to stories of how people had come into pastors’ homes to threaten their financial security, how a “gang of three” was all it took to persuade a congregation of hundreds that the best thing to “kee...

"Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, 'How are we robbing you?' In your tithes and offerings!" -Malachi 3:8 Now, I know what you're probably thinking when you read that verse, "Here we go again. Another blog post/article/sermon about stewardship, about giving money to the church..."  Well, yes...and no.  Yes, because, well, whether you like it or not, your local church--the congregation to which you belong, the place where you gather with other members of that congregation, the various ministries, missions, and activities in which you and those other members take part--does not do all that it does on thoughts, prayers, and tax exemptions. It takes (I can almost hear people shifting in their seats at the thought...) MONEY, and do you know why it takes money? Because EVERYTHING costs money. The lights for the chandeliers and/or the praise band's stage...costs money. The air conditioning that's too cold fo...

I remember a time when I had come home for the weekend from college and found a folded, twenty dollar bill stuck in the driver side window of my truck. It was from my dad. That twenty and a cigar box of rolled quarters was just about the total amount of financial help I got from my dad for college. I remember him telling me once he wished he could have given me more to help pay for college. I don't think he's ever realized just how much he did help pay for college...and for so much more ever since. You see, I grew up spending weekends with my dad (he and my mom divorced when I was three), and a lot of those weekends I was holding the light so he could see where the oil leak was coming from, or I was holding the other end of the board so the saw wouldn't bind when he was cutting it, or I was the extra pair of hands to tote bags of sakrete. I was (sadly) the best help available when there was a leak in the roof or a chicken house to tear down for the tin. I've got a...

I’ve had more than a few “interesting” experiences in my time as a preacher and pastor over the last decade. Many of those experiences have been met with more than one “Amen!” from friends and colleagues in ministry who have experienced them as well. When we share about these experiences, eventually someone will say something like, “I just wish someone would tell church folks this, because  I know I can’t without risking my job.” Often church members only think about their pastor in “pieces,” that is to say they only see part of what their pastor does, and too often they judge their pastor’s ministry based on those isolated pieces. This creates expectations which are seldom (if ever) communicated and can often lead to conflict. So, I decided I’d list a few of those things your pastor wishes you knew but feels like he or she can’t tell you without risking termination or the loss of a church member (here’s hoping I don’t experience either of those things myself!). Your pas...

It's no secret that the Church is in decline. People are leaving or just not showing up in the first place. Mainline congregations are disappearing, and even the bulwark that was conservative evangelicalism seems to be on the downhill slide. What's going on? I've read or heard all sorts of answers to this question, and I think most of them are valid. They range from arguments pointing to the injustice of an institution that insists on preserving crumbling buildings while ignoring hungry children, to the ignorance of an institution that ignores widely held, modern scientific beliefs in favor of antiquated worldviews that were never really intended to be what modern science is, to the irrelevance of a an institution that claims love and forgiveness as its core virtues yet often promotes intolerance. I've heard others answer such questions by claiming that the real problem is liberalism/conservatism, a distancing from "old time religion," or the melding of re...

I recently had the privilege of preaching on the national radio program,  Day1   (formerly "The Protestant Hour"). Day1 is a great program, a place to hear some of the best Mainline, Protestant preachers. You can find my sermon and interview  here , but I hope you'll browse the site for greats like Tom Long, Fred Craddock, Barbara Brown Taylor, and many more.