Number Your Days…Six Days Before John 12:1-8 Our Gospel passage today is kind of a strange one (again)–all about a spontaneous anointing.  I don’t know about you, but even with the kind of work I do, there’s not much call for anointing in my day to day life.  This story from the Gospel of John is hard to relate to our modern lives, isn’t it?  Still, as I was thinking about the story of Mary anointing Jesus this week, I... Read more

Number Your Days…A Few Days Later Luke 15:1-32 Today is the fourth Sunday of Lent, and as you recall, we’ve been making our way through the Gospel passages assigned by the lectionary each week, trying to answer their invitations to think deeply and carefully about how we spend our lives.  Each week’s Gospel passage has within it a reference to time, a reminder that our human lives are finite and that how we choose to live them matters. We’re too... Read more

Number Your Days…One More Year Luke 13:1-9 Welcome to the third Sunday of Lent, when we are thinking about the very frail nature of our human lives, what gift and opportunity we’ve been given, and the responsibility we have to, as the Psalmist directs us in Psalm 90, “number our days”…to make them count!  The first week of Lent we talked about minding the distraction that permeates our living in this world—making sure we are living with intention.  Last week... Read more

Here on the blog I’ve been summarizing some ideas from a book I read recently called, Back From the Dead: The Book of Congregational Growth, by Gerald Keucher.  In chapter four, “Packing Your Toolkit,” Keucher highlights some points about attitude, style, and spirit leaders need to bring with them in order to lead a congregation in a turnaround situation. As far as I can tell, when he says “style,” he is not referring to fashion. Instead, he’s trying to articulate... Read more

Number Your Days…The Third Day Luke 13:31-35 As many of you know, I celebrated a birthday this week.  As my younger sister helpfully pointed out, I am inching ever-closer to 50.  A lot of you asked me if I planned to do anything special for my birthday this past Wednesday, and I definitely did.  I spent the evening of my birthday with all my friends at our Wednesday Night Words small group, on the first night of our five-week class... Read more

For the next few blog posts I’ll be talking about some things I learned from a recent reading of the book, Back From the Dead: the Book of Congregational Growth, by Gerald Keucher.  Keucher is an Episcopal priest who has had some experience during his career of turning around parishes that are large in their physical plants but have declined to unsustainable membership and attendance numbers. Hmmm, this is beginning to sound strangely familiar. Keucher has some very interesting ideas... Read more

When I was a kid my grandmother lived with us for half of every year.  It was always fun for us to have my Dad’s mom right there with us; I am not so sure my mother felt the same way….  See, Grandma had her sacrosanct routines: Grapenuts cereal with bananas for breakfast every day, mass very early on Sunday mornings, and, as she called them, her shows.  Every weekday beginning at about 11 am, no one was allowed to... Read more

Well, today is the start of Lent, as evidenced by the insane schedule at church and also the pancake dinner we ate last night. I woke up in a panic this morning, realizing I had not given much (any) serious thought to what kind of Lenten giving up or taking on I want to do this year.  I’m pretty sure my failed Lenten practice of last year—going vegan—is not on the list for consideration, but since the sudden realization (approximately... Read more

Last week in our exploration of membership we talked about the critical membership quality of cultivating a personal spiritual practice.  I want to thank those of you who took the time to shoot me an email telling me what you planned to practice this week; I hope all of you had some time to take a step back and think about how it is you practice your personal spiritual life. Today, instead of looking inward, we’re turning to look outward... Read more