Categories: changing mindsets, Meanderings (look it up)
Leading worship again in a regular Sunday gathering has been interesting for me. Having been out of that scene for so long, and then walking back in, I’m seeing things with a different set of eyes, and I’m seeing myself as well–how much I have apparently changed.
Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)
Categories: Meanderings (look it up), moments of truth
Categories: Meanderings (look it up)
As a side note before sharing this excerpt…among the many, many things that have been happening with (to?) me lately is that last month I was invited to join the board of Communitas Collective, an online community for the disenfranchised, and another place where I contribute blog-wise. CC is also undergoing some exciting changes, the most recent of which is combining the three blogs into one, now called “The Collective Blog.” I encourage you to go check out the site, and continue to check back as more changes take place in the next few weeks. I’m privileged to be part of what is happening at CC.
Meanwhile, I know that this is cheating (kind of), but while I’m still digging out from my move, here’s an excerpt from my recent contribution to CC. We’ll try to get back on track in the next couple of days….
Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)
Categories: Meanderings (look it up)
Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)
I’ve been so overwhelmed with details lately that I just feel like letting my brain take a little walk this morning. So come on along… 🙂
Aside from pastor friends and others who question whether I’ve lost my salvation…there is (or was, at first) a little bit of personal concern I had in my journey away from the beaten paths of institutional Christianity.
Categories: Meanderings (look it up), random stuff
Seems like whenever we have gone to Denver, we end up squeezing a bunch of stuff into a few days, and go home good and tired. In other words, we don’t get a lot of rest.
But then again, Colorado isn’t really the place to go and relax. Too much stuff to do!
We’ve shared meals with several friends up this way, and had some great times of conversation. (We’re meeting some new friends tonight, recommended by a mutual friend.) In between meeting people, we’ve squeezed in as much sightseeing as we possibly can. Yesterday we spent the day in the mountains, specifically in Georgetown and Breckenridge. Highs in the upper 60s up there (compare to high 90s back in Tulsa) felt pretty good to us. Great shops, great scenery, and so many friendly people.
Categories: changing mindsets, creativity, Meanderings (look it up), music, worship
So lately I’ve had worship on my mind, and have been observing a shift in my thinking about worship in the past couple of years. Seems I did some of this before, in a blog series called Re-Thinking Worship. But I’d like to revisit this from a different angle, less from just tossing around ideas, and more about how those ideas are reshaping my whole approach and belief system about it–sort of comparing how I used to see it, and how I see it now.
Categories: Meanderings (look it up), Rantings
Let’s just dispense with the diplomacy for a moment…I’ve seen more than my fair share of crap and hypocrisy in my church experience. Actually, being in or near the inner circles of ministry leadership for most of my life, I’ve probably seen more than most. Televangelists hospitalized under assumed names for drug abuse, prominent pastors fabricating medical records for insurance purposes, ministers who turn out to be compulsive gamblers or pedophiles. And then there’s the stuff that happens closer to home. Staff meetings that turn into shouting matches. Church members who engage in power struggles with one another, and sometimes with the pastors. Church boards who mutiny against a pastor with new ideas by tossing his belongings out into the parking lot, and changing the locks on the building (I’ve seen that happen in two different churches in two different states). Pastors who lie through their teeth, gossip, and back stab; pastors who manipulate their people emotionally to keep the advantage, just because they can. I don’t know if you have ever looked in a pastor’s eyes and seen malevolence and evil intent toward you, as if Satan himself were staring you down. I hope you never experience that; it isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s completely deflating, because it leaves you wondering who there is left to trust.