Bishop Willimon has a post about pastoral leadership and stewardship, with the particular aspect of stewardship being apportionments. I like the framing that goes on in our church, as apportionments are called “fair-share giving.” I know that sounds better, but I still call them apportionments. I think the general finding is unexceptional. Pastoral leadership has…
On March 24, 2016, blog entry marked 11:40 AM, Dave Black talks about translating poetry and links to his essay on the topic from a Festschrift, available via Google Docs. Reading Dave’s comments about translating poetry reminded me of one of my favorite translations of poetry from any language to any other, Max Knight’s translations…
I was surprised to be invited to teach a session on the history of the Bible to the third grade class at my home church. So what does one do with about a half an hour to talk about the history of the Bible with about 20 lively 3rd graders? I chose to create some…
The tragedy of the American church is that we have the greatest resources ever in the history of Christianity and for the most part we’re sitting on them, doing nothing. When we are doing something, most of what we do is for ourselves. The question, I’m told, is what we should be doing and how…
In a number of worship services that I’ve attended lately, I have been looking for a word to describe what I experience. Unfortunately, I think I have found that word–pale. (I’ll get to the “horse” thing later!) I don’t intend this as a criticism of any particular church or worship service, nor of any particular…
This past Sunday I was invited to preach in my home church, Chumuckla Community Church. It’s a real privilege to speak on the last Sunday of the year, hopefully rounding up where we have been and presenting a challenge for the future. I was offered the epiphany scriptures, and used Matthew 2:1-12. I’m not going…