“Who is in charge here?” is a demand question often heard from someone who wants to enter an organization and provide either leadership or management. When spoken loudly and with an anger edge it can mean that if no one…
Pastors need Lent, too
Just as we had finished imposing ashes on the foreheads of worshipers, my friend and fellow pastor David Bennett turned to me and said, “Alan, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And with those words, David…
Skin tax
What does it cost in America if your skin isn’t white? In 1996, I was a summer missionary in the Philippines. I had no idea how much that summer would change my life. One night my partner and I stayed…
A church for those who wander
Congregations that fail to care deeply for those who have wandered have missed something essential to their reason for being. The book of James closes with a most interesting assertion: “My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from…
Politics in the pulpit: One pastor’s approach
Election years can be volatile, unpredictable, and filled with heated political rhetoric. And these days, it is not unusual for prominent pastors and local clergy to join the fray of bombastic oratory. While I do not think pastors should…
Let the tares alone
Are we courageous enough to stand on conscience, while taking seriously those whose consciences may not now, or ever, be compatible with our own? In 1644, Roger Williams, in London to secure a charter for the new colony of Rhode…
Grace as a default system
Too often, we begin relationships by assuming we experience the world exactly the same way. I recently had an opportunity to share lunch and conversation with a group of female seminarians. Over the course of the conversation I heard several…
We missed our Christian moment, again
As the build up to the Iowa caucus has come and gone, there was a heavy focus on the Evangelical Christian vote as a key to winning. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump all sought the support of the…
Springsteen and Lent: Part I, Ash Wednesday
In graduate school, it can often seem as if all of the good ideas have already been taken. Someone smarter and older has already written on whatever idea you may have. To remedy this seemingly unending problem, one begins to…
No ashes on Wednesday
What can you offer on Ash Wednesday if your jar of ashes is empty? What do you give when you’re feeling empty? When the thought well is dry, when compassion is spent? I opened the box that had been sitting…
Desperate for the Holy
For many, there is great difficulty in getting into God’s presence. Faculty meetings at my seminary begin with worship, with different faculty members bringing forth treasure from their own disciplines. More interesting than the presidential report, to be sure, it…
Is Sunday the most segmented day of the week?
With honor for and apologies to the legacy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, I would like to ask a different question than the statement he made around 50 years ago about churches, Sunday and segregation. Is Sunday the most segmented…