Categotry Archives: food for thought

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Questions I Have Been Asked as a Pastor

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Categories: food for thought, fun, What the heck was THAT?

  1. “____ [insert child’s name] has a temperature. What should I do?”

  2. “I was thinking of going to the theater to see ________, which opens today. Is there any bad stuff in it?”

  3. “Which pizza place is offering the $5 medium pizzas?”

  4. “Can you watch ______ [insert child’s name] for a few hours?”

  5. “Would you rather lose your thumb, or would you rather lose a foot?” (asked by an 11-year old boy)

  6. “Is it supposed to rain today?”

  7. “What would happen if I dropped this on the floor?” (asked by the same 11-year-old boy)
This is a preview of Questions I Have Been Asked as a Pastor. Read the full post (434 words, 2 images, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

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Debris

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Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)

I’ve often been known to refer to Tulsa as “the other Windy City.” (A collective groan: “MORE about the weather??”)

Well, sort of. But not quite.

What I get tired of is not the wind itself, but all the debris that it blows into my yard(s).

My front door faces north, and sits in a sort of alcove. So when a cold front blows through, the neighborhood litter likes to collect at my front step. As I write this, the latest cold front has scattered something brown and raggedy in my front yard for me to go pick up. I haven’t decided if it is shredded cardboard or dead cornstalks. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

This is a preview of Debris. Read the full post (528 words, 2 images, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

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Note to Tulsa Drivers

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Categories: food for thought, Rantings, What the heck was THAT?

Dear honorable drivers of Tulsa….

Remember “SNOW?” It’s that powdery white stuff that sometimes falls from the sky in winter. We don’t get as much of it as they get in, say, Nome, Alaska or upper Minnesota. But we do get it, usually a couple of times each winter. Enough that by now we should all know how to drive in it. So as nicely as I can, let me remind you of a few basic principles of driving in snow:

This is a preview of Note to Tulsa Drivers. Read the full post (406 words, 2 images, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

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Third Place? (Sunday Summary)

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Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought

In our house church gathering yesterday, we borrowed a page or two out of Michael Frost’s book Exiles and talked about “third places”.

We began by discussing four Scripture passages, incidents in the life of Jesus: The wedding at Cana, the Samaritan woman at the well, the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus, and the time when Jesus taught the crowds by the sea by getting into a boat. By talking over these Scriptures together, we extracted a lot of insight, and we could definitely see the incarnational nature of Jesus’ ministry–that He was truly dwelling among us as He lived, taught, and healed people.

This is a preview of Third Place? (Sunday Summary). Read the full post (464 words, 2 images, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

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Re-thinking Evangelism (and lots of other stuff)

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Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, Rantings

I’m looking at the top of the page, and I notice that “re-thinking church” is in my blog title. But the truth is…I’m in a season right now where I’m re-thinking everything. Doctrines, beliefs, and practices I’ve taken for granted for most of my churchy life are getting taken off the shelf, dusted off, and looked at to make sure this is really how Jesus wants it, or really what He meant when He said _________ (fill in the blank). Some stuff is getting reaffirmed, and some stuff is getting reworked. It actually feels very healthy.

This is a preview of Re-thinking Evangelism (and lots of other stuff). Read the full post (1103 words, 1 image, estimated 4:25 mins reading time)

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BUT WHAT ABOUT…Assembling Together?

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Categories: BUT WHAT ABOUT...?, changing mindsets, church, food for thought

(Continuing the “But What About…?” thread…in this series we’re discussing various concerns people have about the growing number of people exiting insitutional churches for more organic forms of expression.)

When I was deeply entrenched in institutional Christianity–especially as a leader–I would categorize someone who migrated away from “church” in one of four ways:

  1. They are backsliding.
  2. They are deceived.
  3. They are rebellious.
  4. They have their own issues.

In my mind–and I believe in the minds of many within institutional churches–leaving the church is essentially breaking a cardinal rule of Scripture. Many of us know the Scripture by heart…

This is a preview of BUT WHAT ABOUT…Assembling Together?. Read the full post (838 words, 1 image, estimated 3:21 mins reading time)

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An Open Letter to People From My Past…

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Categories: food for thought

It seems there are more people from my past reading this blog than I once thought.

Last night I received a comment from someone who attended the church where we had been worship pastors, someone who was apparently quite hostile….well, I should just let you read a little bit of what this person said:

This is a preview of An Open Letter to People From My Past…. Read the full post (993 words, 1 image, estimated 3:58 mins reading time)

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BUT WHAT ABOUT….Accountability?

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Categories: BUT WHAT ABOUT...?, food for thought

This is the first installment of what I hope will be several entries called “BUT WHAT ABOUT….?” These probably won’t occur on consecutive days, but they’ll be categorized in the sidebar, so it will be easy to find them. In this set of entries, I hope to address some common concerns people have about the idea of leaving institutional churches for more organic expressions of faith.

This is a preview of BUT WHAT ABOUT….Accountability?. Read the full post (1055 words, 1 image, estimated 4:13 mins reading time)

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What Is Church? part 2

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Categories: Broken machine, changing mindsets, church, food for thought

This is the rest of the chapter from the book I’m working on, “I Grew Up In Church”. (If you missed the first installment, click here to read it.) This excerpt is copyrighted material, so please do not copy it without my permission. Any comments are welcome.

When Jesus said “church”, He meant only one thing. It was really, really simple. “Church” was the collective group of people who believed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and chose to live in that truth and put their trust in Him.

This is a preview of What Is Church? part 2. Read the full post (2004 words, 1 image, estimated 8:01 mins reading time)

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Christian: Noun or Adjective?

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Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, Meanderings (look it up), Rantings


Hmmm…something going through my head lately. Something I read in Velvet Elvis (which I finished by the way–no further heresies to report). But in the book, Rob Bell remarked on something that I found interesting, and am still chewing on and grappling with….

The word “Christian” was not intended to be used as an adjective.

In Scripture, it is always a noun, referring to a person who follows Christ.

This is a preview of Christian: Noun or Adjective?. Read the full post (573 words, 2 images, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)
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