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August 2013

August 01, 2013

Is it good evangelism to ridicule “millennial” spiritual seekers?

David Koyzis's recent First Things article, "Millennial Religion and the Sovereign Self," disses the way...

July 2013

July 30, 2013

Why millennials don’t want to be Methodist pastors

I'm three years older than Rachel Held Evans, so I really have no business speaking...

July 22, 2013

Beethoven at Sweet FROG: On Resurrecting Culture

Burke United Methodist Church held our second community open mic this past Thursday at our...

July 19, 2013

An example of holy conferencing?

Kevin Watson is a fellow Methodist blogger whom I discovered recently. He just did a...

July 17, 2013

Is communion intellectual property?

I learned a hard lesson today. Some of you saw my post where I had...

July 11, 2013

It’s not heroic martyrdom to “tie up heavy burdens for others” (Matthew 23:4)

Jesus' woes against the Pharisees in Matthew 23 should be mandatory daily devotional reading for...

July 08, 2013

Why you have to be poor to treat people like Jesus did

The title is everything if you want a well-trafficked blog post. Now my task is...

June 2013

June 25, 2013

The voice you long to hear (a gathering at Burke United Methodist Church)

There's a voice of love in the world that is always telling each of us...

June 25, 2013

When I forget my song…

There's an African folktale that I've read with both of my sons. In the story,...

June 22, 2013

Confessions of a self-promoting blog-spammer

A pointed comment in a Facebook group today really cut me to the quick. Another...

June 22, 2013

Should we preach to uplift or convict?

A couple of years ago, we were going around the room at our new member...

June 21, 2013

Will the curmudgeons kill #Methodism? #umc #dreamumc #vaumc13

I am a curmudgeon. Not all the time. I'm capable of having my heart warmed....

June 18, 2013

On redemptive suffering, #abuse, and #privilege

I just looked over an essay by Katie Mulligan that deals with the topic of...

June 10, 2013

“Beset by change but Spirit led”

Our hymn of preparation at mass today was "The Church of Christ in Every Age."...

June 08, 2013

Jason Micheli on Discipleship vs. Propositional Belief

My friend Jason Micheli blogged yesterday on the anxiety of parents whose kids have fallen...

June 08, 2013

The Male Gaze: Attraction vs. Lust

For the past several months, I've been watching the conversation unfold as the evangelical feminist...

June 06, 2013

Is yoga Satanic? E.W. Jackson and Al Mohler think so.

An Atlantic Monthly article yesterday took a look at some comments made by one of...

June 05, 2013

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove on race and family in North Carolina

Yesterday, over 150 social justice activists in North Carolina were arrested at the state legislature...

June 04, 2013

The holiness of belonging to *this* world (with @BrianZahnd)

In Brian Zahnd's May 26th sermon "New Creation (Not Evacuation)," he confronts the neo-Gnosticism of...

May 2013

May 25, 2013

How do we do confirmation post-James KA Smith?

For those of you Jesus nerds who haven't read James K.A. Smith, you need to...

May 23, 2013

Agenda-less fellowship and youth ministry

Agenda-less fellowship. It’s a phrase that’s been stuck in my head recently. I'm not sure...

May 22, 2013

How in charge is God when tragedy strikes?

I knew it was coming: the Piper tweet, this time quoting Job in response to...

May 21, 2013

I want to sit in the clouds with Zach Sobiech

Sometimes you hear songs that only your eyes know how to talk about. I've spent...

May 17, 2013

Tony Jones & the white emergentsia’s “Pentecostal problem”

Because I like to go against the grain, I wanted to try to stick up...

May 17, 2013

Which do you like better? Scandal or changing the world?

Several months ago, someone from the United Methodist communications office emailed me to see if...

May 11, 2013

Martha Mullen, a Christian Antigone

In Sophocles' great tragedy Antigone, a civil war has taken place in the city of...

May 11, 2013

A brilliant rebuttal to my attack on suburbia

So I thought some of you who are tired of my blogomaniac hubris would get...

May 10, 2013

The idolatry of the mission statement

A facebook friend shared this meme. It's scary how perfectly it captures a phenomenon in...

May 09, 2013

Why suburbia is bad for the kingdom: a response to Mere Orthodoxy

Postmodern thinkers sometimes settle for deconstructing the motives of their critics instead of making defensible...

May 03, 2013

Why I would fail Michael and Debi Pearl’s parenting class

I read a very disturbing post on Patheos by a woman named Libby Anne who...