The Christian as Leader
Leadership, leadership, leadership. We hear this mantra all the time, especially in the church. In fact, these 3 words were tweeted by Bishop Scott Jones on the opening night of General Conference 2012 as he reflected on the most important factors in United Methodist renewal. Though acknowledged as crucial, we might profitably ask, “What kind … Read more
Signs, Wisdom, and the Cross: A Call to Worship
A Call to Worship based on the epistle reading from the lectionary this week, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (CEB). Feel free to use this in your church on Sunday; just remember, this piece of liturgy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Where is God? Show me a sign that God … Read more
What’s a little conspiracy among friends? A Relevance LEAD wrap-up
Lots of folks blogged, tweeted, facebooked, instagrammed, and flickred (pinned, anyone?) their way through Relevance LEAD and Relevance X last weekend, so I won’t rehash every detail. I was fortunate to be on the inside a little; helping to coordinate the social media presence — PR on the cheap — and generally pitching in to … Read more
Lent, Ash Wednesday, and Self-Denial
I have pretty high hopes for Lent every year. “This is the year I’ll finally be self-disciplined!” Or, “I will discover a new depth to my prayer life by…praying…all the time.” (Replace praying with “giving up this luxury” or “acting with mercy,” it changes from year to year.) I’ve been reminded in several places by … Read more
Relevance LEAD this week!
I’m doing something new at the end of this week. I’m going to a conference (well, that’s not new) in Las Vegas (well, I drove through on the Interstate once) called Relevance. (That. That’s the new thing!) Relevance LEAD follows the TED model — where current leaders in technology, entertainment, design, and more share brief … Read more
Adaptive Challenge?
During discussions about the future of the United Methodist Church, including the Call to Action and the Global Leadership Summit, there’s been much discussion of the “adaptive challenge” facing us. But official presentations go on to say that we know exactly how to meet that adaptive challenge. So here’s an alternative perspective of poetry, not … Read more
Further Adventures in Blogging
Good day, expat companions! You may have seen some of my shameless self-promotion over the past week or so, but in case you missed it, here’s the big news: I’ve got a new blog! Kate Shellnut approached me about blogging for the Houston Chronicle’s online religion portal, HoustonBelief. After conversation, some advice from fellow community-religion-bloggers … Read more
Envisioning Campus Ministry Anew
In yesterday’s post I talked about giving up our Babylon-like assumptions about how campus ministries might work, and focusing on what we might call the Israel model: a smaller community, dedicated to the highest ideals of faithfulness to God’s calling and mission. But this means quite a bit of adjustment about how we might go … Read more
What’s our story in campus ministry?
One of the best resources I’ve used so far in campus ministry is Sean Gladding’s The Story of God, the Story of Us which has just been published by IVP; I’ve used it 3 times in its manuscript form after Sean was kind enough to email it to some of us who asked after hearing … Read more
What are Campus Ministries?
I am not sure I’m even an average campus minister. To look at the statistics, Lamar’s Wesley Foundation isn’t doing great in my 5th year. Better than when I got here, sure: building gutted, zero program and students, poor relationship with the university and area churches, & a board of directors which was outdated and … Read more
