A couple of weeks ago we tried something I call the Open Round Table in an attempt to exercise a new way to do leadership or elders at our church. It was open to anyone from the community who is interested in the church and has its welfare at heart. No one was excluded. I was quite nervous going into the meeting because I had no idea who was going to be there, how many, and what was going to... Read more

Even though I recognize that all proposals are falsifiable, I do however propose: We are one. Our unity is our fundamental, primary, foundational, essential and inherent fact. A spiritual community, in my mind, is the local, geographical, temporal manifestation of this reality. Expressions of community are particular incidences of this rudimentary reality. How well or poorly it lives up to this is another matter. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t true community. As a pastor of a local Christian church,... Read more

These are some things I fear by one, being who I am; two, expressing my investigations in this blog; three, pastoring the way I do. They are: angering my superiors; upsetting people in my community who can do damage; being excommunicated; losing my friends; my family being hurt because of me; our church closing down; being unemployed; being attacked and ridiculed; offending more people than I help; being wrong (truly a heretic). The thing is, I have experienced all of... Read more