The best place. A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?
I have a lot of coffee places I like to hole up in, but this is my most significant new place at the moment:

BTW, I think this is the first time I’ve appeared in a photo on RM. The rectangle on […]

The little boy in this story died last night.
In life and in death we belong to God.

So I wanted to share some memories of my farewell dinner before I forgot them. I’ve been given a video of the event but I haven’t watched it yet.
The meeting house of SPC was decorated like the Great Hall of Hogwarts. There was a rectangular table lengthwise in the front with candelabra, gargoyles, and a […]

I still intend to get a post together about last weekend’s festivities, but in the meantime, I have some random thoughts kicking around:
1. I’ve had two experiences recently in which I was effusively praised for something that made me go “Really? Doesn’t everyone do that?” The first was with the search committee of Tiny Church, […]

I’ll share more about this amazing final weekend at SPC another time, but check this out:

Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.
If I were planning a service for an alternative/non-traditional worship audience I would SO use this as the opening of an Easter service of the resurrection…

Many of you are on Facebook, but since some of you aren’t, and this blog is the archive of my life, I post this here.
Some of you could tell something was up by the way I was blogging, or not blogging. Here it is:
———
Dear Suburban Presbyterian Church Friends,
Grace and peace be with you.
I am writing […]

This is in response to Bruce Reyes-Chow’s thoughtful post. I started to comment but it got too long.
I’m not quite ready to say “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not” twitter in worship. Those decisions are very contextual. But I have been thinking about this question since the original “straw poll” took place… via Twitter, I […]

So my aunt sent several people this video of a TED talk on “5 dangerous things you should let your kids do.” Play with fire, own a pocket knife, take appliances apart, and the like. The idea seems to be gaining traction from a lot of quarters, that keeping kids in a hermetically sealed bubble […]

1. Kelley asked about my sabbatical grant proposal. (For those who don’t know, the Lilly Endowment awards grants of up to $50,000 to cover sabbatical expenses for the pastor and congregation.) It’s still taking shape, but I am thinking about centering on the theme of Story and Storytelling. I’d like to have some teaching sessions […]

We had a nice Easter, by and large. Worship, followed by delicious yet low-key dinner, time in the big chair with a magazine, family walk, and pizza for supper.
I found myself having a rather unorthodox thought during worship yesterday. We were reading one of the unison prayers and I thought, We should focus-group this language. […]

unedited, unfinished
i mumbled the passion story to myself
for most of saturday:
scraped food, loaded plates into the dishwasher
take; this is my body
spread mulch with a heavy rake
he threw himself on the ground and prayed
poured goldfish crackers, screwed on cup lids
they offered him wine mixed with myrrh
rocked a baby in the unseeing dark
the women saw where […]

So one of my churchy pet peeves is that when we talk about using one’s gifts and talents, we are almost always talking about filling a church volunteer position. We used to use time and talent forms here at Suburban Pres, which consisted of dozens of jobs large and small and tiny little boxes for […]

None of this is very well formed yet…
When I was at Gigantic Denomination Conference for Educators, I attended a workshop on healthy leadership in the church. It was time well spent and I have continued to think about the topic since then.
Here are the speaker’s “ten items for healthy leadership,” some of which are […]

This blog might have more than its share of warmed-up leftovers and Stouffer’s frozen lasagna this month, as I tend to the deadlines I mentioned in the my previous post.
I am also leading worship for the women’s conferences at God’s Retreat Center in the Texas Hill Country, and am told that the liturgy needs to […]

From this week’s New Yorker:
Obama is a star. So are many of the people around him. A lot of them, like him, rose to adulthood inside the upper reaches of the American meritocracy, which oriented them toward analytic brilliance and felicity of expression, and gave them experience in dealing with fast-moving, high-stakes transactions. Running poky […]

omigod, a post! Yay!
ohgeez, will she ever shut up about Obama?! Boo!
Part of my new job description focuses on evangelism. It seems that my main tasks are to educate people about what that word means and doesn’t mean, and to help Suburban Pres learn how to be welcoming, hospitable and even inviting in a way […]

Remember when I used to write here often? I miss it. I’m still writing, just not here as much. I’ll be back.
Ruth (link below) tagged me for a Presbyterian meme:
In 25 words, give or take:
1) What is your favorite faith-based hymn, song or chorus?
I love “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” especially with descant (”let […]