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Mercy Not Sacrifice

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July 2012

July 03, 2012

Exceptional American: Rev. Lorenza Andrade-Smith

I don't know Methodist pastor Rev. Lorenza Andrade-Smith personally, though she is a facebook "friend,"...

July 02, 2012

Rethinking "Rethink Church"

This past Saturday, I preached on the meaning of church. We're going through the book...

June 2012

June 27, 2012

Did Paul obey his General Conference?

If Peter was the first Pope, then Paul was the first Protestant. In the original...

June 23, 2012

What are you saying when you don’t take communion?

I was at a friend's wedding recently at a United Methodist church. When communion was...

June 18, 2012

My father's burden

I remember when I was little, I would sometimes wake up late at night and...

June 11, 2012

Letter from a gay Christian classmate

This is a letter from a guy named Chase Bannister who went to school with...

June 08, 2012

Is what I’m doing or thinking or saying building trust or undermining trust?

There's a song stuck in my head from our mission trip: "Is what I'm doing...

June 05, 2012

Getting to know God through people we just barely got to know

The other night, I had a conversation with a fellow member of our church's Dominican...

May 2012

May 21, 2012

Why does God make eunuchs? (Matthew 19:12)

As I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store this week, I...

May 15, 2012

Come change the world with us!

Change the world. It's such an undifferentiated, macroscopic goal -- the main theme of every...

May 12, 2012

12 things about my mom

1) She woke me up every morning until I left for college by yanking the...

May 09, 2012

Sixty percent: a poem

Sixty percent is a supermajority, who took time out of their busy schedules, who needed...

May 03, 2012

Don’t hate our purple UMC

In 2 Samuel 12, when Bathsheba's first son was dying, David fasted and clamored with...

April 2012

April 27, 2012

How will you avoid creating a CYA culture, #GC2012?

Tom Berlin, a pastor and clergy delegate from my conference for whom I have a...

April 26, 2012

Bullying and humanity at General Conference

First off, I'm aware that I didn't witness what happened tonight in person. Mark Miller,...

April 26, 2012

Anxiety vs. Kingdom in the United Methodist Church

I've been following the "Call to Action" debate on the twitter feeds from the Methodist...

April 18, 2012

Why I’m not afraid of General Conference

I've been thinking a lot about John Meunier's question "What would it take for us...

April 09, 2012

In the name of the Thinktank, Consultant, & Bubble sheet

The United Methodist Church is about to have a very significant international meeting called the...

April 08, 2012

How do we get you back next week?

Let me be honest. Easter is a bittersweet holiday for me as a pastor because...

February 2012

February 21, 2012

Why I’m fasting from blogging for Lent

This Lent, I have decided to fast from social media and blogging. I wanted to...

February 20, 2012

We are not all Catholic now

I'm sitting in the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC....

February 18, 2012

Persecution and epistemic closure

Epistemic closure is a recently defined philosophical term that describes someone who is so thoroughly...

February 16, 2012

Like Religious Freedom? Wear Ashes on Wednesday!

There's been a lot of talk about religious freedom over the past couple of weeks....

February 11, 2012

Letter of a Christian martyr — Father Christian de Cherge

With all the buzz about Christians being persecuted in the world (real and imagined), I...

February 05, 2012

Pastor Cheri

I've decided to take a risk and share truthfully about a phase in my Christian...

January 2012

January 25, 2012

Is Mark Driscoll closer to John Wesley than we are?

The latest blogosphere controversy involving Mark Driscoll concerns the church discipline practices at his church...

January 21, 2012

Vulnerability and leadership

Any of you who have read my blog before know that I place a lot...

January 19, 2012

Why I love religion and love Jesus: new video

Latest development in the love/hate religion/Jesus controversy: Catholic priest rapper Father Pontifex has a banging,...

January 11, 2012

Selling sex in the Christian bookstore

All of a sudden, sex is everywhere in the Christian blogosphere. Seattle megachurch pastor Judah...

January 10, 2012

Imagine church without celebrity

I found an article today that gave me a lot of hope. It listed the...