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Back in Black
Photo by Charlie Riedel/AP Here on the other side of Black Friday, it occurs to me that the holiday buying season has replaced Advent as the way our culture prepares for Christmas. I realize that this...
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Wasting God’s Time
Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library This is adapted from a sermon I preached this past Sunday—Transfiguration of the Lord—on Mark 9:2-9....
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Generation to Generation
Photo by craigie3000 This is my Confirmation Sunday sermon from yesterday. The scripture readings were Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 1 John 1:1-4. This is an unprecedented time in the history of Fourth...
View ArticleMinistry 2.0
Over the weekend I had the privilege of organizing a panel discussion on social media and ministry at the Presbytery of Chicago’s LEAD event . Here is the description of our workshop: Ministry 2.0 How...
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Church is a Tool, But For What Purpose?
Photo by zzpza I’m past the half way mark of the DMin class I’m taking with Lillian Daniel this week on “Why Church Matters in a Culture of Narcissism.” While I’m still not sure that we’ve articulated...
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Does Church Matter?
Photo by Vik Nanda I preached this sermon on Sunday after taking a DMin course at McCormick Theological Seminary called “Why Church Matters in a Culture of Narcissism” with Lillian Daniel. The text for...
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From BBQ Church to Playground Church and Beyond?
Photos by Joann Lee This past Saturday, my friend and colleague Hardy Kim and I put on an East vs West BBQ throwdown as a fundraiser for our friends Kurt Esslinger and Hyeyoung Lee, who will be serving...
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My Final Post as the (un)Tamed Cynic
Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971 It’s time for a change. I’ve been writing this blog for over three and a half years under the tagline “Posts from the Blog of an (un)Tamed Cynic.” It was a nod to Reinhold...
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Why Does Church Matter?
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk with a group of parents at our church’s fall Family Camp. I used our time to explore with them a question that is central to this blog: does church still...
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Unity not Uniformity in Post-Christendom
Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine (center) and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. For a while now I have been reflecting on the...
View ArticleUrgency and Opportunity
Yesterday on Facebook someone reminded me that I never posted the third video on post-Christendom that I put together for a friend’s adult education class. (You can find the first two here and here.)...
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Why Join A Church?
Image by Craig Taylor Last week a young leader in our church told me that she had been in a conversation with a friend about the benefits of joining a church versus simply going to church. She thought...
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The Peter Principle at Church
For a while now I’ve been wanting to make periodic posts that take Seth Godin’s brilliant daily posts on business and marketing and apply them to my world in the church, under the tag “Seth Goes to...
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Surprised By Hospitality
During my lunch break I needed to mail a package. As I walked toward the local post office, I felt a sense of dread welling up inside of me. I’ve experienced poor customer service there and I wasn’t...
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Why Evangelism?
I’ve never had “evangelism” in my job title before, and quite frankly I never thought that I would. Though most people never said anything out loud, when I told them about my new job I could see the...
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Show Up, Go Out, and…
Today Seth Godin made his 6000th blog post. He uses the occasion to suggest that writer’s block is a myth. But then he takes it one step further: More important than the output, though, is the act...
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Managing Decline or Pruning the Tree?
Every mainline Protestant institution—churches, denominations, seminaries, publishing houses, parachurch ministries, non-profit organizations—has been dealing with decline for decades. Increasingly,...
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My Final Post as the (un)Tamed Cynic
Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971 It’s time for a change. I’ve been writing this blog for over three and a half years under the tagline “Posts from the Blog of an (un)Tamed Cynic.” It was a nod to Reinhold...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Does Church Matter?
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk with a group of parents at our church’s fall Family Camp. I used our time to explore with them a question that is central to this blog: does church still...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Unity not Uniformity in Post-Christendom
Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine (center) and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. For a while now I have been reflecting on the...
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