Thoughts on John Wesley, UMC, life, faith, and anything else!
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Reflection on a Hymn
On Sunday we did the song “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” Some in the band said something about it being a ‘downer’, not to mention the fact of it being in a minor key. For some reason my mind has been reflecting on this hymn ever since. I feel that because we live in culture…
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Silence
It is no secret that North American culture is a noisy culture. It is difficult for many people to turn off their TV or radio. It isn’t that people are watching or listening to it, but rather, the noise makes us feel comfortable, or like we aren’t alone. Add to that the explosion of music…
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Simplicity on the Naive Side of Complexity
Many Christians have settled for the simplicity on the naïve side of complexity. They do not want to be disturbed by issues that unsettle the status quo and deny them their passions and pleasures. They repeat the elementary truths of the faith over and over again, with little movement toward maturity. In the face…
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The Importance of Silence
Discovered this in one of the books for my doctoral program, Pathways to Spiritual Living by Dr. Susan Muto: Everyone needs silence: the teacher, the nurse, the social worker; the artist, the poet, the doctor; the lawyer, the housewife, the cabdriver. To neglect this need is to risk living a tense, fragmented, spiritless life. Formation…
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More and More Convinced
I am being more and more convinced that the best route for the UMC would be to do two things: 1) Get rid of membership. 2) Stop asking for church statistics. I write these things because I believe if we stopped doing those two things, we would have to revisit what it means to be…
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Missional Thoughts
As I continue to study the missional church I find myself believing that this is what “church” is meant to be. At the core, being missional is understanding and believing that you are “sent.” (See John 20:21). Yet, I find most of the time my tradition focuses on making disciples (Matt 28:19-20) while overlooking the…