Religion

Last week someone asked how I would reimagine church. What would I change? We had just passed our 16th anniversary as a church—I said that’s exactly what we did sixteen years ago. We were a subversive lot back then, wanted

Patriarchal and paternal. Two words descending from the Latin word pater/father, but a patriarchal system is one that is male dominated and a paternal system is one where leadership—male or female—restricts the autonomy of people supposedly for their own good. Our

A man has been ill for thirty-eight years. Ill enough that he’s spent all those years lying by a public pool begging for a living and waiting for a healing. Jesus comes by and asks him if he wishes to

It’s ironic that Jesus’ primary teaching, the one that defines his ministry and on which he spends nearly all his time, is the one we most misunderstand. Jesus is always talking about entering Kingdom, and of course we’re thinking about

Met a prison chaplain who told me about needing to notify an inmate that his father had died, but when he called the inmate to his office, they were in count. Prisons count multiple times a day—inmates go to their

What is the meaning of the Resurrection? Christians are all over the map, fighting and debating not so much that Jesus is risen and still lives, but how and for what purpose. Ultimately, such questions are a matter of faith, but

Most of counseling is listening. Listening to stories that give you a snapshot of a person’s life at the moment, backstory, symptoms they are suffering, and some of the stressors causing the symptoms. But only some. The stressors we can self-identify

Had an intense conversation with a child specialist at the hospital grieving her friend, a nurse on the floor who died that morning. Cancer. She was reeling from her friend’s death, and we talked through her feelings and regrets—the sadness,

This is the third in a series of Sunday sessions of conversations. After seven Sundays working on a Red Letter Study—the direct sayings and teachings of Jesus from a first century Hebrew/Aramaic perspective—questions, concerns, and resistances were surfacing from people in

This is the second in what will be three Sunday sessions of conversations. After seven Sundays working on a Red Letter Study—the direct sayings and teachings of Jesus from a first century Hebrew/Aramaic perspective—questions, concerns, and resistances were surfacing from people