Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo. I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
Categories: food for thought, movies
Last week, I started some ramblings about the new surge of “Christian” films that have been making it to movie theaters lately, and questioning whether we are once again missing the boat with our approach. It was a discussion that at the time seemed very poignant, but may have actually been quite mundane. (Sometimes it’s hard to gauge when you’re just sending thoughts into the cosmic void known as the “blogosphere”.)
Categories: food for thought, movies
I know I’ve ranted a bit on this topic before, but in recent months I’ve seen some stuff that makes it worth revisiting. The topic is “Christian” movies. Is this a thing? More improtantly, is it a thing worth pursuing?
Categories: My Story, Things that are too good to keep
For those who have been waiting with baited breath for my long-awaited personal update–you can exhale now. And sorry for the discomfort I may have caused you.
🙂
For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on something (and waiting for the results), keeping fairly quiet because I wanted to be able to tell the whole story. Now, I finally feel I can talk about it.
We became homeowners this week, for the first time in nearly 20 years. We bought the townhome we’ve been renting for the past 2 years from our landlord.
Categories: How I am
Hi, reader(s),
Just a quick check-in to let you know that I haven’t fallen off the earth. Got a lot of stuff on my plate this month, lots of irons in the fire, but it’s a temporary thing that should be resolved in early June. I’ll drop by here as I can over the next couple of weeks, but if you’re following this blog–keep following. I’ll be back with details about some cool stuff as soon as the dust settles.
Categories: changing mindsets
Every once in awhile, Matt over at The Church of No People writes something that rocks my world. A couple of weeks ago, he posted this gem about “The Poisonous Myth of Finding the Highest Calling.” It’s worth going over there to read it before continuing here.
I related to this post on so many levels: the whole idea that a perceived “high calling” makes a martyr of you, or even imprisons you. Then there’s the pitfall of getting your whole identity wrapped up in some aspect or expression of your calling, or simply feeling like you have so much to live up to.
Categories: food for thought, holidays
He is risen. However you choose to celebrate this day, I hope it’s a great one for you.
If I can be completely honest, for the past few years, I’ve literally had to remind myself when Easter comes around. Everyone in my household is too big for the Easter Bunny (not to mention we really don’t need the candy around), and not being actively involved in a congregation at this time, there’s not much else in my life to remind me of it. It wasn’t always that way. For the better part of my life working in the church, “Easter” equaled “work” for me, as each time it came around, we geared up for what was supposed to be the biggest Sunday of the year. Even before I was officially “in the ministry,” I was always deeply involved in the services, pageants, plays, etc., from my early teens on. So for the past couple of years, it’s actually come as a welcome rest for me not to have to do anything on Easter Sunday.
Categories: food for thought, movies
So “Noah” came out this weekend, and true to form, religious-minded Christians are having a heyday with it. Social media is ablaze over it, and not always in a good way. Even so, there are a few believers that seem to have kept a level head, and some have actually said some intelligent things about it.
Since I brought up this controversy earlier (see my post here), I figured now that I’ve actually seen the film, I might chime in one more time. (I’ll try to avoid any spoilers in case you guys haven’t seen it yet.)
Categories: How I am
It’s been a little bit of time since I gave a personal update about what’s going on with my family’s continuing journey–so since I’m a bit overloaded with work at the moment and don’t seem to have anything else pressing to talk about this morning, I figured now was as good a time as any. 🙂
Categories: food for thought, Rantings
So it seems I rarely rant on this here blog nowadays…but something’s got my dander up a bit, so rant I will.
There’s this movie coming out at the end of this month about the story of Noah. It’s called Noah.:) It’s got some really cool actors in it, and it looks like it will be a really good movie. My son The Director really likes the work of this film’s director, Darren Aronofsky, and has been looking forward to this film for a long time. As for Aronofsky himself, he is Jewish by heritage; he has been entranced by the story of Noah from childhood, so this movie is something of a lifelong dream for him.
Categories: Meanderings (look it up)
In the past two posts, I’ve rambled a bit about the idea of leaving the institutional church, and shared some more of the story of how I came to leave it. To sort of wrap up this train of thought, I figured it was worth discussing whether there is any circumstance under which I might return to the institutional church.