In my ongoing series about my personal faith journey, last week I picked on ultra-conservative youth camps that I worked at back in college. However, being an equal-opportunity offender...
“People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.” ― Bob Dylan* Today Jonah Lehrer, staff writer at the New Yorker and author of...
Sometimes the best way to talk about something is not talking about it… to talk all the way around it, and imply it, and thereby make it all the...
There are often significant times when we are children that we don’t fully understand until we are adults. We cannot process their full meaning until many years have past....
One of my pastoral heroes is Mark Wilson of the “Revitalize Your Church” blog. I hope it’s a part of your reading list if you’re a pastor. He has a...
My meetings were over. All I have to do is get from Park Ave & 68th Street in New York City, back to Indianapolis. Simple, right? As I step...
After my short foray into youth ministry I had the opportunity to travel around the country representing my university. This sounded extremely glamourous to me, since I was only...
“If you can’t preach on grace, you can’t preach on anything. And if you can preach really well on grace, you can preach on anything.” [quote_right]”If you’re missing grace, you’re...
I was a horrible youth pastor. I found myself in college studying for the ministry. This was despite the fact that my faith was quite feeble–and my interest in...
Al Goracke is the pastor of Kingswood Church in Blaine, MN. He was recently elected to give oversight to a group of Churches in Illinois. That role in the...
The children of well-known spiritual fathers often ride a curse into this world. High expectations, suspicion of favoritism, and the “PK” (pastor’s kid) label often drive a child to...
In another installment of our series on dangers of denominational work, we have the idea of over-estimating the influence of your denominational leadership. As a leader sometimes there is...