Pastor, Present, Future

September 30, 2011 //

This is the second of a two-part series, reflecting on the news of a handful of well-known pastors leaving their churches.

As a pastor of a local church community, I have often been asked, “So, what, exactly, do you do during the week?” This lack of clarity about the pastorate as a vocation extends not only to curious congregants, but ministers seeking to be faithful to God’s call as well.

As Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes,

Our vocation is facing something of a crisis. Many pastors aren’t sure how to describe their calling or explain why it matters to the rest of the world.

My wife and I have served together in vocational ministry as pastors for the last eleven years, but neither of us would claim to have even begun figuring this thing out. Far from being a systematic treatment, here are a couple of my thoughts on pastoral ministry:

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Categories church, communication, leadership, ministry

Tweet This!

September 26, 2011 //

News of author and pastor Rob Bell leaving the church he founded, Mars Hill in Michigan, has set off another round of tweets and updates in the Christian blogosphere and Twitterverse. While this particular flare-up doesn’t seem to carry the particularly nasty tone of the whole Love Wins controversy, a few prominent church leaders have already taken to their keyboards with harsh words (which I won’t be quoting here).

While the cynic in me wants to wipe the dust of this latest Christian dust-up off my feet, particularly in light of some of the important national and geopolitical happenings this week, this news raises some significant issues for the Church and how we’re called to be the people of God together Read the rest of this entry »

Categories church, communication, culture, leadership, ministry

They Live!

September 8, 2011 //

Apparently, a few articles I wrote back in the day for Relevant magazine are back from the dead. Hopefully, they haven’t developed a hunger for brains in the meantime.

Read at your own risk!

Courtesy of Far, At Night We Live:

Categories writing

India 2011: Freedom Songs

August 26, 2011 //

This post is the third in a series about our church community’s recent trip to India in partnership with Justice Ventures International.

I’m not sure if was the heat/humidity double-punch combo, the growing realization that injustice permeated so many levels of culture around us or, perhaps, the jetlag playing catch-up with me, but my first thought when arriving in Kolkata was, Can we go back to Chennai?

While Chennai is a massive city in its own right, the humanity stacked upon itself throughout Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) can make it seem like a small town in comparison.

In Business for Freedom

Our team had the privilege of working with Freeset for a couple of days while in Kolkata.

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Categories church, community, hope, justice

India 2011: From Slavery to Redemption

August 15, 2011 //

This post is the second in a series about our church community’s recent trip to India in partnership with Justice Ventures International.

The first city our team visited was Chennai, India’s fourth-largest city with a population between eight and nine million people. As a board member with JVI, it was a great joy to be able to visit the staff in Chennai personally and see the office in which they work.

Slavery Today

While in Chennai, we had the incredible privilege of visiting a village of former bonded slaves who had been freed, in part, through the work of JVI. We might imagine slavery as history, something we read about in school from which we’ve moved on. The brutal reality, though, is that there are millions of people enslaved today. Read the rest of this entry »

Categories church, hope, justice