To read the previous installment of this story, go here. That post will have a link to the previous one, etc… You don’t want to emulate me. Don’t copy what we do at Rothesay Vineyard. I’m serious. What makes Rothesay what it is is that we are ourselves. I made a decision years ago to live out my own freedom and I encourage others to do the same. That’s what makes us. Although I occasionally come up with lists of... Read more

To read the previous entry to this story, go here. After I had the “It’s time!” dream, I called my uncle Chris in California (he is the president of Cleansing Stream Ministries). When I told him the dream, he said he a picture popped into his mind for us. He said that he saw a ship languishing in the water. For some reason the captain was no longer on board. A rowboat of joyful men came to land and picked... Read more

A few scrambled thoughts are floating around in my mind. So, in an attempt to exorcise them, I’ll write some of them down here: I don’t know how many people have said to me that they can’t read my blog AND go to my church. The blog upsets them too much. What does that mean? Does it mean that, even though they know from my blog that my thinking is considered unorthodox and that they have major disagreements with me,... Read more

In 1995, when I was still a Presbyterian minister in Nova Scotia, Canada, I realized I had come to the end of my rope. I had planted a Presbyterian church in 1993 with hopes of it being free of all the trappings of institutional Christianity that I had experienced up until then. I wanted it to be simple, a free gathering of people with what I think is a simple combination of passionate worship with deep wisdom, with love as... Read more

I suppose I should correct #1 from my list of How to Deconstruct Your Church. I should probably say, instead, that you should deconstruct yourself first. I guess this is especially for pastors, but it applies to all of us who want to deconstruct the church so that we can become a genuine community of free individuals. So, here’s a list of how to deconstruct yourself: First of all, you have to really want to. It has to be an... Read more