“Conventional wisdom,” I thought while in the shower, “isn’t.” Isn’t wisdom, I mean. And almost by definition.
If just about everybody thinks it, if it’s conventional, then it probably isn’t wise. Otherwise the world would be a better place. I used to think the most difficult part of life would be figuring out the wise course [...]

Posted in church thoughts 3 Comments »

For years I’ve felt awkward, bordering on guilty, that I pastor a Quaker church and work on MLK day. It seems wrong on multiple levels, like we are turning our backs on our history of social reform. But it also feels kinda weird and selfish to ask for another holiday, or to say, “I am [...]

Posted in church thoughts No Comments »

“It’s easy to say ‘Jesus is my Savior.’ But sometimes people’s approval is my functional Savior.”
Bob Hyatt has been speaking to us at our Yearly Meeting’s pastors’ conference, and he’s been quite helpful to me. Last night, he kept reminding us the good news of the gospel: God’s grace through Jesus gives us our identity, [...]

Posted in church thoughts, finding myself 1 Comment »

He plucks the world out of our hearts, loosing the chains of attachment. And he hurls the world into our hearts, where we and he together carry it in infinitely tender love.
For several years, these sentences greeted me from the door of my office each morning in Boise, words written by Thomas Kelly in “A [...]

Posted in church thoughts 2 Comments »

I can’t decide between a soothing “aaaaaahhhhh” and a panicked “WHOA!”
Several years ago, I read Marva Dawn’s “Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God.” That experience was really unlike anything I’d gone through before. The words were challenging, harsh, and they turned the world upside down. But she was giving words to what was already [...]

Posted in books, church thoughts 4 Comments »

Eugene Peterson, in contradiction to my last post, is one of the best speakers you could find anywhere.
He framed his speaking in the general session today around this question: What are pastors good for? He shared his early romantic and militaristic views of that. He absolutely destroyed the way business thinking, marketing, and consumerism have [...]

Posted in church thoughts, npc 1 Comment »

I just got out of a seminar where I was out of place.
It was helpful, though. Tim Conder was talking about bridges between established and emerging churches. The following question made me realize I wasn’t the target audience: “How many of you are senior pastors who feel like you don’t understand this new way of [...]

Posted in church thoughts, npc No Comments »

“Survival is underrated.” Brian McLaren, February 7, 2007
It’s ok to take care of ourselves, it’s ok to be a friend to ourselves, it’s ok to say no, it’s ok to have a life outside of ministry. Brian hammered these thoughts home today in many different ways, and it spoke to me.
His most thought-provoking comments [...]

Posted in church thoughts, npc, quaker 1 Comment »

“What I would wish for the so-called Counter culture…I would wish that rather than fancy itself ‘counter’ to the culture, its compassionate ideas would take root in the land and people, and begin to transform them both…I fear this breath of fresh air, this grass-roots movement in which even old men like myself have placed [...]

Posted in books, church thoughts 4 Comments »

I’m not Mr. Business theory guy, not by a long shot. But I do read a pretty famous blog of a friend of mine called Slacker Manager. Brendon has a post today that reminded me how the same cultural shifts seem to be appearing in different ways in almost every field.
If you didn’t click [...]

Posted in church thoughts 5 Comments »