As I watched the Democratic Town Hall Meeting, I was struck by the relative calmness the candidates maintained. Now, I know enough about politics to know that these candidates are coached by handlers and dressed by stylists and heard because of sound engineers, but there was something about their sitting down to a table that …
Ministers are not rock stars. Ministers are not celebrities. It has to be said. It just does. It has to be said because there is a minister asking for a plane. It has to be said because there is a minister who buys a house and property valued at close to 5 million dollars. It has to …
When I was in my second year of seminary expressing the desire to purse a call to the pastorate, I was told by more than one person that if I wanted to be a senior pastor I needed to start either as a youth minister or an associate pastor and then “work my way up.” …
Being a minister is really hard. Being a minister during this transformational time in church history, is even harder. There is a temptation while looking at declining budgets, declining memberships, and uncertain futures to begin to compete with each other over potential members or to try to outdo each other with better buildings and programs. We …
The problem with answer this question is that the answer is decidedly different if your woman is a pastor and your woman is a man. A study reveals the shameful reality that women clergy are making 76 cents to every dollar their male counterparts make, which is worse than the national average. This is an especially disturbing reality …
When I was approached by a member of our church to perform the wedding to her girlfriend, I wasn’t surprised or shocked. Since I started classes in seminary, I knew that this would be a part of my ministry as a pastor of a church and as a minister. We studied and discussed the LGBTQ …
As I watched the State of the Union address last night, I realized it would serve us well as ministers and churches to reflect on the state of our churches just as the president does every year with our union. It’s hard to reflect objectively on the work we do as ministers because it means …
I was in Target, which is not an uncommon place for me to find myself as we await Baby H’s arrival. As I was standing in line, there was a frenzy of activity in the returns and customer service section. As I waited, I was trying to determine what was going on. There was a …
I’ve never been in combat nor have I ever trained to be in combat, but I know good people who have given body and mind to training and serving. They have told me that when one of your fellow soldiers goes down, you lean down, pick them up, throw them over your shoulder, and get …
At the CBF General Assembly this year, I led a breakout session about bivocational ministry. Throughout my time in divinity school, we talked about the future of ministry being bivocational ministry, but I was surprised to find out that when I tell people I am bivocational, they are surprised. The more ministers I meet, the more …
