“What do you want from life?” Everyone answers that question differently. What I mean is this. Everyone wants to be happy. There are things we want to accomplish. We want financial security. We want to be in relationships with other people. But we’re all unique, so we all want these different things in different proportions. … Continue reading »
Posted in July 2010 …
Pastoral Tensions
My reading plan brought me two verses this morning that highlight a tension pastors must maintain. The first is Paul’s well-known call to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ: But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never … Continue reading »
Home From My Retreat
What do you call it when you come back from a retreat? — an attack? Well, technically, I wasn’t on a retreat. I was at the 2010 Academy of Missional Preaching (Southwest). But it was held at the Serra Retreat Center in Malibu, and there were retreat-ish aspects to it. If you needed to work … Continue reading »
Jim Collins on Excellence in Church Employees
I happened on an excellent session from Catalyst 2008 with Andy Stanley interviewing Jim Collins about keeping employees who are a poor fit in a position. Andy says that churches are all about mercy — so sometimes, out of compassion for the employee, we keep people in positions for which they aren’t a good match. … Continue reading »
Desert Hills’ Centegenarian
Today is the first day of our eldest member’s second 100 years: Jack turned 100 yesterday. (See the article at the Hi-Desert Star.)
Apparently We Don’t Believe Anything
Another problem with the new PC(USA) web site: apparently we don’t believe anything anymore. Or, if we do, those beliefs are carefully hidden. Now, I’m on record as liking the new look of our denomination’s website. And I’ve already commented, negatively, about a particularly smarmy “reasons I’m a Presbyterian” badge posted there. But I was … Continue reading »
Do the Dead Grieve?
Reading C. S. Lewis, I was struck by this thought: If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience … Continue reading »
Unhappy Parenting
Al Mohler has a response up now to an article I’d been meaning to reply to. The article, in New York Magazine, poses this conundrum: From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think. Most … Continue reading »
Checking Our Heads
Yesterday, I enthused about the PC(USA) website’s makeover, and one of my Facebook friends went to see it. He’s a Southern Baptist, and he wasn’t impressed with this quote on the home page: The pull quote you see here isn’t quite a quote; if you watch the video you’ll see they “punched it up” a … Continue reading »
New PC(USA) Site
Hey, cool. The PC(USA) has updated its website. It looks like a huge improvement over what we’ve had the last umpteen years. Congratulations to whoever put this together.