the old saying “money is the root of all evil” isn’t really that accurate. we all know there’s something underneath money that is far more insidious–power. i think about power a lot for all kinds of reasons. my free-fall out of the power-laden mega church i was part of probably was the icing on the […]
Read Moreequality is an action word
NOTE: this is part of glenn hager’s monthly synchroblog. june’s topic is “community” and you can check out all of the links here. erin started the lively conversation about finding a place for the church-homeless, the vagabonds, those who no longer can go back to the old ways but don’t have a new place to go, either. it is clear […]
Read Moreigniting the ember: emerging women finding their voice
“women have been taught that for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge” – author unknown i’ve discovered the world is round. i have survived my venture out (so far) and although it feels like i have fallen off the cliff, i have found there really is solid […]
Read Morea time for burning
at the refuge’s february film & discussion night this past friday we watched a time for burning, a documentary shot in 1967 depicting conversations around a white lutheran’s pastor desire to organize a social gathering with a local african-american lutheran church in omaha, nebraska. here’s all he wanted to do: offer a reconciliatory gesture toward his african-american fellow lutherans […]
Read Morespringtime for a church
one of the things that is fun about life in blog-land is there are so many cool people out here, thinking new thoughts, digging deeper, longing for change in the kingdom, communicating their hearts in different ways. the random connections & ways that things get stirred up is always so wild to me. anyway, i wanted to […]
Read Morewhy i believe in co-pastoring
a few years ago i had never even heard of a co-pastor. i knew about senior pastors, i knew about associate pastors and childrens & youth pastors and some churches, if they had really big budgets, would have a care pastor. but during all my time in churches and ministry i never heard the word […]
Read Morethe new conspirators
i saw information on this conference a while back and was immediately intrigued. i loved the the idea of conspiring new ways of living out our faith, the thoughts of the conversations that people would be having there about so many things i highly value. i really wanted to try to pull off going but wasn’t sure if it was possible for […]
Read Morewhen one of us hurts, we all hurt
“there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – elie wiesel this past weekend i finished reading a thousand splendid suns by khaled hosseini. whoa. i had read the kite runner and seen the movie over christmas. both of them were […]
Read Moremoving mountains
wednesday night at our house of refuge sage facilitated a really cool thing on prayer beads (more on that next week with some pictures, too!). he ended our conversation with an excerpt from one of martin luther king’s sermons. man it was good! so inspiring and so interesting that 40 years later (this speech was […]
Read Morewhen is the time?
a few days ago the fam and i went to see the great debaters with denzel washington, the true story of an all-black debate team in the 1930’s that was the first to compete against white colleges. we love those kinds of movies, ones that stir up great conversation and a desire to make a […]
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