United Methodist district superintendent (Grand Rapids District) Laurie Haller takes a cue from a book on surviving in a corporate environment to make some suggestions for United Methodist leadership in her post Orbiting the UMC Hairball 4-12-10. Amongst other things she notes: The whispered truth is that The United Methodist Church suppresses creativity and genius…
From the Wesley Report: Mainline Protestant Christianity has become known for leaving people in slavery, because somewhere along the way, our strategy changed from leading people out of Egypt to planting churches along the Nile. And that’s why mainline denominations continue to lose members. People don’t need churches to help them stay in slavery– they…
That’s what Allan Bevere suggests as the ordination process, based on his experience in Cuba. I find the idea attractive, at least for certain types of ministry. There might be other ways to test various gifts. It does relate to a problem I’ve noted amongst United Methodist ministers, many of whom come out of seminary…
Ex-UMC, now megachurch pastor Craig Groeschel offers six suggestions for the United Methodist Church, packaged in six brief blog posts. I think that there is much worth considering in his suggestions, though I don’t think they are generally all that new. There’s something that bothers me in the whole discussion, however. In practically every debate…
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…
Shane Raynor is again stirring things up with a post on a Toolkit for Radical Methodists. He has proposed the idea of preaching faith until you have it, rather than waiting for faith. Since I recently posted some about doubt, I was interested in his phrase “wearing [your] doubt as a straitjacket.” I wonder if…
I recently wrote with appreciation about my Seventh-day Adventist education in Biblical studies over on my Participatory Bible Study blog. Today a friend sent me an e-mail directing me to a post on Inside Higher Ed, discussing a problem with the teaching of evolution at La Sierra University, a Seventh-day Adventist school. I didn’t attend…
As a publisher I have the joy of spending a great deal of time with a book as it goes through the process of publication. I don’t expect you to read my thoughts on The Jesus Paradigm as anything like a review, but there are some special things about this book and the way it…
Imagine being on a ministry committee with the responsibility for examining the plan for Jesus and his congregation (the disciples) going to Jerusalem that final week. What would you consider? What would you recommend? From my observations of the various decision making bodies in churches, I suspect there would have been a few people who…
I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but it’s been busy, as you can tell from my low level of blogging. Geoffrey Lentz is the associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pensacola, and a former student of mine. In fact, I met Geoffrey in the first class I taught for…
