I once tried to convince my wife that I only did something because I was made to. My wife, to her credit, didn’t buy that. “You have never in your life done a single thing you didn’t want to do.” She’s right. I’ve made it a point in my life to be clear that there…
Category: commitment
No. 2 What do you provide?
What do people buy when they buy something from you? [Read: What is someone getting when they use your services?] They’re getting an experience and tools to take with them. They’re getting collaboration and the abilities that come with my experience and history. They are getting creativity and energy for new projects. They are getting…
No more complacent elephants.
During my time down in Cuba, which was only a short 8 days, my elephant (rather, my heart) got a good swift kick for being lazy. A kick that, looking back, was well deserved. I had allowed my complacency to become comfortable, and that is a dangerous thing. Bring in relationship with others is a…
No. 1 Who are you?
I recently joined a youth ministry co-hort through the Youth Cartel. One of my homework assignments is to take Seth Godin’s Freelancer course from Udemy.com. For this series of videos, he has these sort of “worksheets” to do. This is my attempt to do them and have some honest transparency about them. And to keep…
I want to be part of an authentic church.
Today, on my day off, in between car washes, trips to the store, the mechanic, and multiple loads of laundry, I read two things: First, I read a piece from the Washington Post by Rachel held Evans that one of my youth leaders sent me this morning from April of 2015 called, Want millennials back…
list: (noun) a simple series of words or numerals; origin: germanic origin, first known use 1602
I love lists. They make me feel accomplished. When I create a list, it’s typically a “to do” list. Right now, on my phone are the following lists: Packing List Legal Documents Groceries Reminders Family General To Do There are also the random lists I keep on sticky notes in my office. Things like, “call…
wednesday: (adverb) the day of the week between tuesday and thursday; origin: middle english
Today is Ash Wednesday. I haven’t gone to an Ash Wednesday service in several years. Which, lots of people find shocking considering that I work for quite a large church with lots of services. I haven’t gone because finding a balance between working for the church and being part of the church has been almost…
progressive: (adjective) moving forward; happening or developing gradually over a period of time; using or interested in new modern ideas; origin: first known use of progressive: circa 1612
For the last three days I have been attending the Progressive Youth Ministry Conference held at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, IL. As the inaugural event there were highs and lows. First off, let me be clear, no conference is perfect. What is important about a conference is that it helps bring about change…
limbo: (noun) a place or state of restraint or confinement; a place or state of neglect or oblivion; an intermediate or transitional place or state; a state of uncertainty; origin: 14th century; middle english, derived from medieval latin
Yesterday an article came out by Carol Howard Merritt on the Christian Century website and made its way around the Facebook inter webs. Last week, I discovered I failed another Bible Trivia Content Exam. What happened you ask? Oh, I blanked. I blanked big time. I mean, I was incapable of telling the story of…
ordination: (noun) a decreeing; origin: 1350-1400; middle english
For the third time, I find myself beginning to study for my Theological Competence Exam, and my second for the Polity Exam, for the PCUSA. The first time I took these tests, back in August of 2011 and Jaunary 2012, respectively I was excited and nervous; emotions about taking these tests that I had prepared for my entire…
This works better if I write…
How insane is this? I write a blog for my job, and I can’t even keep up with my own on here? Maybe it’s like a famous chef or something; they are fabulous in the kitchen of their four0star Michelin restaurant, but get them at home and they just want take-out. Now, I’m not claiming…
Well, this is the first of hopefully many…
Greetings all you bloggers out there. If you found this, I’m not sure as to whether to say good luck or congrats. I will let you choose for yourself, as I am not in the market of taking people’s autonomy from them when it comes to making decisions about how they want to receive something….
thetravellingtheologian 