Talk With the Preacher

By Amy Butler Seems like everybody likes to use the phrase “prophetic leadership” when it comes to the church. It sounds deeply theological and also a little daring, don’t you think? Pastor search committees have a tendency to use the…

By Amy Butler When I first took up preaching every Sunday I made the decision to follow the Revised Common Lectionary as a guide for worship planning. It would be nice to say that I chose to do this because…

By Amy Butler I work right around the corner from The Gallup Organization’s headquarters here in Washington, so I’ll just say up front that the informal poll I recently took on Facebook should not be considered strictly scientific. That being…

By Amy Butler I had a free evening last week, so I decided to go to church. Though I spend quite a bit of time at church, I don’t often go to church in the way that most people think…

By Amy Butler One of the great hardships of being a pastor is that the job involves two very important tasks that generally do not work well together: sales and offending people. It all sounds very distasteful to call it…

By Amy Butler I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my flower boxes, and about being a pastor, and how the two have so much in common. It could be this musing is coming about because of post-traumatic stress following…

By Amy Butler It’s several days after Easter, but I still can feel the wake of Holy Week rocking my life. As the storm gradually subsides and I try to get myself upright in the aftermath of the most important…

By Amy Butler It’s the start of the organizational year around here, so all our committees and boards are gearing up for the work of the church in 2010. I think I could write a whole column, or even a…

By Amy Butler In my opinion, one of the scariest people in the world of a young pastor is the head usher at her first church. This I can pretty much verify by my experience with Edna May Reynolds. To…