It’s Ash Wednesday. I was supposed to be serving at church today, imposing ashes on people for an hour this afternoon.
Strangely, I was looking forward to it. While Ash Wednesday is morbid, there’s also a sacredness to it that I appreciate.
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Is it easier to bring Jesus to the progressives or social justice to the evangelicals?
This is the question I’ve spent most of my professional life wondering, as I’ve alternated between evangelical and progressive settings, respecting both for...
Surely there’s a church somewhere that practices the kind of hospitality Jesus did, right?
I wanted desperately to believe this after my family found itself unwelcome at church during the last several weeks. Since then, I’ve continued to wrestle...
The last time I went church shopping I was a freshman in college. My first Sunday on campus, I walked to the Methodist church that was a block from me. I’d grown up in the Methodist church and truly expected to find a church just like the one I...
I’ve seen several recent posts in various online youth ministry discussion forums about how we can get kids and tweens to read Scripture.
Several people have suggested instituting a “Bible Bucks” program. The idea is that when young people read ...
I have fond memories from my childhood of curling up in my mom’s lap, in her big (ugly) green recliner and reading the Berenstain Bears’ books. They were classics that every kid my age loved.
I’ve loved introducing these books to my own girls,...
Like so many others, I watched in horror yesterday as domestic terrorists seized the US Capitol.
I’ve been in the Capitol building.
As a child, I visited it with passes from my Illinois senator. As an adult, I availed myself of my rights and went...
In late April and early May, my VBS leaders and I began wrestling with what to do with VBS this year. We felt skeptical that things would be open enough for us to offer in-person VBS. We felt even more skeptical that people would come if we did...
Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Martin Luther King Jr.
As a kid, MLK was the ONE black man I learned about in a positive way. He was the pastor who gave the “I have a dream” speech and who advanced the notion of...
As states reopen, the conversations are raging in youth ministry circles about when and how to “reopen” our youth ministries.
My youth ministry will not be regathering this summer.
I'm using that word, regather, intentionally because even though...