Seeking to Faithfully Follow Jesus Each Day
I seemed to strike an important cord yesterday with the first part of my Rethinking the Ordination Process post based on the comments and my inbox. I fully understand writing about this topic in the way I have will make some upset while it will encourage others. My intention is not to upset folks but…
One of the rules of the United Methodist Church is “Do No Harm”, yet I believe our current ordination system does cause harm to those seeking ordination in our church. I believe there are also positive and encouraging moments and people in the ordination process and I will get to that later as well, but…
I want to preface the beginning of this post by saying that the church I serve does not expect me to visit every single sick person in the church, so this post is not a “vague-post” to make a disgruntled point. Yet, this quote from Carey Nieuwhof (shared on the clergy coaching network Facebook page)…
Thursdays are typically when I spend a lot of time writing my sermon, prayers, and call to worship for worship, so of course, this has got me thinking about our Sunday morning worship service. As I was preparing things I came across an important image reminder that I am sharing with you today. It reminded…
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8rvf8QK/ This quick video has some powerful words on the importance of having just one person who we know is there for us no matter what and is looking out for us. I thought this was also important in light of it recently being #WorldMentalHealthDay. My one person is Lindsey ‘Moore’ Pettengill. As someone who has Generalized…
I have been serving appointments since 2021 but I have been working in the United Methodist Church for over 20 years in areas such as youth ministry, associate pastor, residency programs, and senior pastor roles. I am 44 and God willing I hope to keep serving as a pastor until I retire one day. However,…
A few ideas/concepts I have been thinking about lately in regards to itinerancy and organization for the betterment of churches and clergy… I was thinking how as clergy we are each gifted in different ways, in some areas we are strong, and in others weaker. I know you could have one pastor who is excellent…
Coming up on June 11th I am doing an “Ask the Pastor” message for our worship service. I had one week in between the sermon series I am doing and then being gone at our annual conference and so I wanted to address questions that people had about the faith. Today, in my blog, however,…
Recently a fellow clergyperson was doing a survey to find out about generational divides within the church. Of course, over the years the common and even cliche divide was over musical styles (hymns/contemporary). I remembered hearing about this from the time I entered the church as a teen. Yet, I think the divides over the…
Even when we as the Church seek to do ministry in fresh ways, we can have a tendency as the church to fall back into old unhelpful habits. We gravitate towards programs or things we do “for” the community rather than “with” them. We should be leery of just putting a new bow on the…