My answer to a friend: There is no success in ministry, only service and moments of celebration. If you choose to minister, expect to be misunderstood. All of the pain people carry will fall upon your brow, and you shall be the stand-in for every ignorant statement...
Many of us were told that theology is in the answers. But theology is in the conversation and conversation is driven by questions, not answers.
Some people believe the alternative to bad religion is secularism, but that's wrong... The answer to bad religion is better religion--prophetic rather than partisan, broad and deep instead of narrow, and based on values as opposed to ideology.
Most biblical stories are descriptive, not prescriptive. They show what it looks like to wrestle with trying to live a moral life—recording success and failure. But here's the thing: That makes the Bible more holy, not less. Treating spiritual texts like a recipe book...
In the Season of Pentecost (Liturgical churches call it "Ordinary Time") -- God called Abram to leave his home to find a new one, and Jesus called Matthew, a tax-collector, to leave his job and “follow me.” In both testaments, we heard stories of moving from...
The moment we Christians think we have all the right answers for another person, for a group of people, for an entire state, or a whole nation, that’s when we know we’ve not only begun to confuse worshiping God as being God ourselves, but we’ve also confused...
A young minister asked me today for my philosophy of ministry in a nutshell. Before I could even think, this came out of my mouth: “If love can’t win it, it can’t be won; if love can’t do it, it can’t be done; in the end, love is the only answer.”
There was a moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH. Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because...
Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. from The Weight of Glory
In the gospels, Jesus is asked 187 questions. He answers (maybe) 8 of them. He himself asks 387. Maybe faith isn't about certainty, but learning to ask--and sit in the complexity of--good questions.