We All Have a Dream…

The DreamUMC conversation is more than two months old, and growing in some exciting ways. We are putting words and ideas to action, and finding new partners across denominational lines. Background Coming out of the 2012 General Conference, many delegates, volunteers, and folks who had followed the proceedings from afar looked for a way to…

Sorry for the inconvenience!

I've been a bad blogger, and my technology has been very very bad. Right now, I am unable to upload my sermon from Sunday, 6/3. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I hope to have it online soon. In the mean time, I am headed out to New England Annual Conference session. You…

iLearning

I'm very excited about the iBooks 2 roll out with textbooks. I've been hoping for something like this since the Kindle came out. I see infinite implications for education, particularly. Wealthier districts are already providing each student with a laptop or netbook; it's get on the ball so each student in the country can have…

More on Jesus and Religion – links galore!

I'm pleasantly surprised by the interest in my recent post in response to the "I hate Religion but Love Jesus" video. Thanks for reading, sharing, and commenting, and for linking to your own reflections. In the spirit of fairness and follow-up, Rachel Held Evans drew my attention to this email exchange between the video's creator,…

I love Jesus, but I kinda like religion too

A lot of folks on facebook have been posting links to this video, where political science graduate and non-profit worker Jefferson Bethke seeks to "highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion" (text of video description). Mr. Bethke is a self-proclaimed healed pornography addict, and attends the Federal Way campus of Mars Hill Church (dot…

Counting the Unaccountable

It's that glorious time of year when United Methodist Churches hunt down, compile, and report their statistics for the year. For a growing number of us, this is now part of a larger system of reporting of statistics year round, designed to help us measure our churches' "Vital Signs" (part of the Vital Congregations program).…

Construction

I appear to be the construction goddess: construction projects like to follow me around. Culvert work outside my house, sewer work outside my church, re-carpeting projects inside my fellowship hall... I can't escape it. And for some unknown reason, major problems with my uploading software on my blog. I have my sermons clipped and mixed…

The Coolest Thing Since the Printing Press

I’m surprised that this didn’t make more of a splash when it came out a month or so ago. The Codex Sinaiticus project is updating and making available online the images and translations of a codex—a 1600-year-old bible, one of the oldest and most complete versions of the Christian Bible ever found. Why do I…

Link Love!

This totally made my day. Maybe my week. Not my month, but there's some cool stuff happening this month. Way, way down on his list of podcast he likes, Matt writes: We Your People, Ours the Journey These are the sermons of Rebecca Clark, aka @pastorbecca, a Methodist pastor in the US. I really enjoy…

I’m not the only one who thinks substitution is bunk!

You really should check out this post by Angela on the Radical Love Project. It's a super-good read on Jesus, attonement, and what is and is not important. Here's a little teaser: Jesus didn’t come here to die as payment for anything. I could go on all day about how that makes no sense at…