On being mad at God

Last night I spent a little time with a family and lead a brief prayer service at the close of calling hours for a 27 year old son, fiance, and father of three. There was a lot of pain in that room. That, combined with a discussion at UMCommunities, has me thinking, yet again, about [...]

In the midst of death, we also live.

I love my kid; she keeps life light.
I was in the shower this morning, working on my eulogy (because that’s where I always work on my sermons, don’t you?). Arianna was obviously playing hide-and-seek with my brother-in-law, because just as I was reaching the second transition in the eulogy (and the conditioner), the bathroom door [...]

Obituaries

Such silly things, like you can describe a whole person in a few paragraphs.

The one in the paper/on the funeral home site isn’t bad, even if I do think that referring to my mom as Jon’s “long-time companion” makes her sound like either a live-in nurse or a canine. Is partner really so hard to say? [...]

Grieving Well

I deal a lot in the business of death and, more importantly, its aftermath, and the ability to hopefully mourn well. We do ourselves and our loved ones a great service when we are able to honor and say goodbye to them, and process the pain and the loss in our lives at the same [...]

Just Say It.

If there’s a pastor in town who doesn’t have a funeral this week, I want to know who it is (because s/he must have some magic protection on the congregation, and I want it). It’s a bad week, especially for unexpected deaths. Especially for young men. And the funeral director’s own father, the former funeral [...]

Where two or three are gathered…

I was asked to officiate an odd funeral today.
I didn’t know the woman who had died, or her friend who had made the arrangements. That’s not odd. What was odd was that the man who made the arrangements ended up being the only person who came.
The deceased had been born, lived most of her life, [...]

Prayers with the dying

I’ve only watched a few people pass away, but it’s always hard and not in the ways I expected.
It takes a long time. Much longer, usually, than we expect. It’s like childbirth in that way, and there’s something amazing in the fact that for a lot of people we leave this life as slowly as [...]

The mission field

I evangelized in Starbucks today.
Yep.
First, I had a funeral this morning, under very difficult circumstances. As in the family was estranged from one another and rather than sharing bittersweet memories of the deceased took the opportunity to air some grievances that probably really needed to be aired. I hope I brought a little opportunity for [...]

One of Those Days

I mean that in a good way.
Last week at church may have been one of my best services, but today was one of those days that reminds me why I’m a *pastor* and not just a preacher/worship leader.
It is Heritage Sunday, and my sermon (unrecorded) focused on “coming together”– our denomination coming together 40 years [...]

I Post, Therefore I Am

My church’s sermon page is currently un-updateable, but my personal archive is working. My sermon/talk from the week of the murders (the Sunday sermon, not the funeral message) is now uploaded here, and called ‘untitled’.
This week I had several guests who went on the Ecuador trip with me and our service ran long, but it [...]