Jeremiah 6:16-21; John 14:1-14 As most of you know, this spring and summer I was a delegate to two denominational conferences—our United Methodist General Conference, a worldwide gathering in Tampa, and the Western Jurisdiction Conference which took place in San Diego (I know, two terrible places to go for conferences, right?). While at these conferences, …
Judges 6-7 A lot of people are looking for jobs or career changes in this economy. The whole process is stressful…looking for the right job, checking out the ads, doing the networking. But probably nothing is as stressful as the job interview – having to prove yourself over and over to someone who doesn’t know …
As I traveled to the Western Jurisdiction Conference of the UMC yesterday, I was re-reading once again Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic work, The Cost of Discipleship. One of the most powerful quotes from the book leaps to mind today as the conference begins: Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today …
We spent this afternoon in Kenya with Pastor Oscar Muriu who is the Lead Pastor at Nairobi Chapel, one of the most innovative and effective disciple-making churches to which I’ve ever been exposed. Today he gave us an overview of how Africa has historically been the cradle of Christianity throughout its history, and how that …
Photo credit – Mark Retzloff. http://markretzloff.com/portfolio/branding/jonah-sermon-series-presentation-slides/ Well, we have been enjoying our Vacation Bible School this week and the theme “Operation Overboard.” As I was thinking about that, one biblical story certainly came to mind—perhaps the original “Operation Overboard” in the story of Jonah. Jonah, of course, is a well-known sea story. A quick summary: …
2 KINGS 17:7-15 At the end of the movie Planet of the Apes (the original with Charlton Heston), Heston’s character and his female companion are riding a horse down a beach—ostensibly toward freedom, when they come across something sticking up out of the sand. The closer they get, the more Heston begins to realize …
Isaiah 40:1-9 A few years ago we took a family vacation to Yellowstone, which is an amazing place unlike any other. It was a fun place to explore with its geysers and steaming landscape, its wildlife and amazing vistas. One afternoon we were down in the West Thumb geyser basin and Rob and I hooked …
A Re-Rooted Life (A Sermon After the Fire) Continue Reading »
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 Back in 1990, tennis star Andre Agassi, with his trademark flowing dirty blond lion mane mullet, cut a commercial for the Canon Eos Rebel camera with the iconic tagline, “Image is everything.” The spot featured Andre riding in a Jeep, smoothing back his hair, and generally looking like the essence of …
Beeson Pastors at Kijiji Guest House on the Campus of Africa International University, Nairobi It’s great to be back after a couple of Sundays in Kenya where I traveled with members of my doctoral cohort from Asbury Seminary. The jet lag is slowly subsiding after 30 hours in transit to come home but one …
I’ve done a lot of church visits during my years in the Beeson doctoral program at Asbury. We’ve visited megachurches, hipster churches, downtown churches, wealthy churches, impoverished churches, and churches without buildings. Nowhere, however, have I seen what I saw today. We headed over to Nairobi Chapel this morning for a visit with the staff. …
Greetings from Kenya! A quick update from the Asbury Seminary Beeson group here in Nairobi. I arrived with the group on Saturday night and was bussed to our guest house at the Africa International University outside of Nairobi. Sunday morning we attended a two hour long service at Nairobi Chapel–a church housed in large tents. …
Yesterday was our church garage sale. Several of the churches I’ve served over the years do one of these annually. When you do one of these every year, you begin to notice a few trends—trends like seeing the same stuff show up year after year. In seven years of doing yard sales in Park City, …
It’s good to be back with you all after nearly two weeks away at the United Methodist General Conference in Tampa. I wish I could tell you that I had plenty of opportunities to enjoy the Florida sun, maybe get to the beach, come home with a little tan—but actually the whole time was spent …
It's been an eventful day so far at General Conference, with several actions that have significant implications for the way our denomination is structured and the United Methodist Church's influence in the world. Here are some of the highlights and links to detailed articles. Delegates voted in favor of adopting the compromise "Plan UMC" with …
I've been here at General Conference for a full week along with delegates and observers from around the world and while much work was done in legislative committees over the past week, this week the real work begins as legislation is brought to the plenary. Yesterday I had the chance to take some time off …