You Can’t Argue With Success

I’m listening to the Christianity Today podcast, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” Specifically, it’s the story of a Seattle based mega-church and it’s most prominent pastor, Mark Driscoll – how it started, how it grew, how it established a network of campuses/churches and then dissolved…or spontaneously combusted into a dumpster fire. As I’m

Camino Diary, Day 18

A day of rest. We spent the entire day exploring Leon. It was all about resting and recuperating even though we did a lot of walking around the city. And it is a beautiful city. Our thinking was that Leon was the beginning of the end. We spent time planning out the “final stage” of

Dealwell Memos

These digital memos from a senior devil to his stepson devil in training have come into my possession. Ordinarily I wouldn’t pass along thoughts from the Underworld (at least knowingly) but these seem important enough to share. I will publish them once a week beginning today. Deber jr., I’ve heard from your mother that you’ve

The Reverse Advent

In the morning I stood beside the bed of a friend in a hospice facility who is preparing to make her ascent. I prayed for her and read scripture to her and tried to say something that felt like love and hope and faith. That afternoon I read a health update from a friend. The

Conversation with the Naked Pastor

This interview is from my podcast, currently in hibernation, and it’s the conversation I had with David Hayward, aka the Naked Pastor. I enjoyed collecting these stories and I hope to get back to this some day. My goal was to go behind the curtain and let the wizards of emerald city share their stories.

Black Lives Matter

(It’s Pastoral Ministry Tuesday. This is what is on my heart and mind today about pastoral ministry in America.) I live in fear for all of my black friends. I fear for their physical safety and for their emotional and mental well-being as they experience an endless stream of threats and the daily additions to

Camino Diary, day 8

We left Estella and sadly, we left behind Derrick’s pilgrim credentials. A sign he would have to return another day to finish the Camino. The time was coming up quickly that he would be leaving us and returning home. To stay on our schedule, we used a “fast forward” and took a bus ahead to

Lizards

(Every Tuesday I try to post an observation on pastoral ministry. These are the thoughts and reflections of someone who has been involved in pastoral ministry for about 35 years. I get it wrong a lot which is how I learn to do it better.) It’s impossible to overestimate the amount of dysfunction in most

Ordination as Sacrament

(Welcome to Credo Friday where I continue to build up posts that offer an explanation for the things I do because they spring out of the things that I have come to believe. Today’s post comes out of a PMT post from earlier this week that you can read HERE.) On Pastoral Ministry Tuesday this

Busy

(This is a Pastoral Ministry Tuesday post. It’s a day late. Every week I try to post a “behind the scenes look” at this pastor’s life. It’s an attempt to be more transparent than whiny – i hope I’m finding the balance.) This is the busiest I’ve ever been in 35 years of pastoral ministry.