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Posts from the ‘Pastoral Ministry’ Category

Mar 8

19 Comments

The Work of the Church

I spent a bit of time this morning listening to an interesting little interview with Eugene Peterson over at NPR’s “Books” page. The interview accompanies a short excerpt from Peterson’s new book, The Pastor: A Memoir—a book that is in the mail, and that I am very much looking forward to. Unfortunately, Eugene Peterson wasn’t on campus much during the three years I spent at Regent College so I did not have the privilege of taking a course with him, but his books have been a lifeline to me over the course of my first three years in pastoral ministry (I’m thinking specifically of Under the Unpredictable Plant, Working the Angles, and Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work). Peterson’s consistent refusal to allow the pastoral vocation to be accommodated to the logic and demands of the marketplace (I believe “religious shopkeepers” is the term he uses) is an inspiration and a challenge. Read more

Jan 19

32 Comments

Thank God for the Light

Last Thursday afternoon was an afternoon like many others, for me. The workday was winding down; I was cleaning up a few loose ends before heading home to take my daughter to the pool for swim club. In many ways, it had been a good afternoon—nice and quiet, mostly uninterrupted, and ideal for sermon writing and reflection. Read more

Jan 6

3 Comments

A Link… and a Quote

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my post “Pockets” has been featured this month over at High Calling’s “Around the Network.”  It’s always nice to be recognized—especially in the context of writers and thinkers whose work you respect and admire.  Be sure to check out some of the other posts that are highlighted as well.  I’ve only made it through a few so far this morning, but I have thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated each contribution I have read. Read more

Dec 14

17 Comments

Confession

A post by Andrew Stephens-Rennie over at Empire Remixed has got me thinking about confession.  My sense is that confession is seen as something of a dirty word in our culture, conjuring up all kinds of unpleasant images of nosy priests and slavish religious rituals meant to assuage unnecessary guilt.  Confession isn’t a popular concept in a self-obsessed culture suspicious of religious power and those who wield it and where we seem to almost instinctively think of ourselves as victims of the myriad forces that act upon us rather than active and willful contributors to the brokenness of our world. Read more

Dec 6

17 Comments

We Always Need Storytellers

Over on a previous post, there has been an interesting conversation going on about the nature of preaching and the role it plays (or ought to play) in the life of the church. A number of issues have been raised, but among the more interesting (and personally relevant!) ones, from my perspective, is the extent to which the task of preaching is used to legitimate the existence of religious “professionals.” Read more

Nov 29

39 Comments

Something to Say

I preached my thirty-sixth sermon yesterday, which, in and of itself, is not a particularly momentous number or occasion, but which nonetheless, was an experience that provoked a bit of reflection. Preaching is a practice that has taken some time for me to grow into. I still find it incredibly odd that people actually entrust me with twenty minutes of their precious time on Sunday morning. And I often think that God has an incredible (or incredibly weird?) sense of humour in sticking the introverted kid who talks too fast and stutters too much in front of a microphone every Sunday. Read more

Nov 16

12 Comments

Fragile Truth

Well, I just returned from a wonderful week away and am spending a good chunk of today slowly wading through a very clogged in-box! One of the more humourous discoveries I have made thus far in my wading is this cartoon sent by a friend last week.

As is so often the case, it is funny because it is true… Read more

Sep 15

8 Comments

Who Is This God?

Richard Dawkins famously opens chapter two of The God Delusion with the following oft-quoted, adjectivally promiscuous salvo:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Read more

Aug 17

5 Comments

Something Stronger

Ordinarily, I am entrusted with the task  of preaching once per month but because of summer holidays and staff vacations I find myself in middle of preparing three consecutive sermons.  I am enjoying the opportunity, but I am also gaining an appreciation for those whose regular task is weekly preaching!  As I sit down this morning to begin preparing for next Sunday, a couple of quotes that came through my inbox last week are bouncing around in my head. Read more

Aug 5

9 Comments

Whatever You Did for the Least of These

One of the best things about being a pastor is simply the opportunity to hear people’s stories, and to see the many and varied ways that God has of drawing people to himself and his purposes.  Yesterday I was in conversation with a person who is on the journey from a dark and destructive past to a more hopeful future.  This person continues to have struggles and has many unresolved issues and unanswered questions, but they are walking in the right direction.  It was good to hear their story and to be able to offer a bit of encouragement. Read more

Jul 23

15 Comments

The Warranty

I’ve been back home in southern Alberta for the last week or so and am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to reconnect with friends and relatives. Many of these people spent time in paid church ministry over the last decade or so. Some continue to work in the church, while the majority have moved on to other things. Given that so many people in my circle of family and friends have some experience in paid ministry, it seems like every conversation, at some point, invariably touches on the church. Read more

Jul 18

22 Comments

Family Matters II: Some Reflections on Celebration 2010

So, Celebration 2010 (a recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Mennonite Brethren family held in the Vancouver area this past week) has come and gone and I find myself in reflection mode. One of the topics that generated significant discussion and debate was the nature of our Mennonite Brethren identity. Are we evangelical Anabaptists or Anabaptist Evangelicals? What is it, exactly, that we gather around as people from such diverse contexts? Is it theology? A shared history/common story? Is it relationships that have formed between people and communities over time? All of the above? And what happens if/when these individual commonalities and relationships begin to break down, as some see to be the case in the Canadian MB context? Read more

May 6

26 Comments

This is My Father’s World

In what is becoming a most enjoyable annual tradition, I find myself back at Regent College for their pastors conference during this, the first month of May. This year, the theme of the conference is the interaction between science and faith and is called “Wonder and Devotion: Bringing Science and Faith Together for the Church.” We’ve talked about creation and evolution, the immanence and transcendence of God, issues around the interpretation of Genesis 1-3 and a whole host of other very interesting things. It’s been a great week thus far. Read more

May 1

10 Comments

Superlatives

The past two days were spent at the annual provincial conference of the churches in our denomination.  There was a mood of celebration and excitement.  We heard a lot of reports about what people were doing for God, how God was leading and directing this or that ministry, how/why our churches should give to the work of God.  It was a weird combination of refreshing and exhausting. Read more

Apr 28

Writing: We Claim What We Have Lived

During my first year as a pastor, a wise friend told me to make a habit of journaling through and about the many and varied experiences and people that I encountered in my daily work.  I’ve not been as regular with this as I should, but I have found that when I do make a practice of writing about experiences and how they affect me, it invariably brings a measure of clarity and, often, newfound resolve to whatever situation happens to be looming large, whether positive or negative. Read more

Mar 17

34 Comments

Doubt

A feature ran by The Washington Post yesterday has generated a bit of discussion around a study called Preachers Who Are Not Believers by prominent atheist Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola from the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University (those familiar with “The Four Horsemen” of the new atheism will know Dennett well). The study outlines interviews with six “courageous” clergy who maintain their jobs in the pulpit while privately nursing unbelief. It is a classic modern tale of the triumph of reason and the inconsistencies and dissonances that come with the slow, inevitable drift away from faith in the modern world. Read more

Jan 22

22 Comments

Prayer: You Place a Reservoir Within My Heart

Perhaps surprisingly, given my occupation and the fact that one of my main (and most rewarding) tasks on any given Sunday is leading our congregation in prayer, I often find prayer difficult. The reasons for this vary. Sometimes I am paralyzed by the relative insignificance of my own needs when compared by the suffering others are facing (this week has been an especially difficult one for prayer, given the situation in Haiti). Sometimes I don’t know what to pray for. Sometimes I don’t know what prayer accomplishes—in my own life and character and for those I pray for. Sometimes I am simply lazy and undisciplined. Sometimes the silence of heaven wearies me. Read more

Dec 15

12 Comments

On Empathy and Exclusivity

I couldn’t help but be curious when I saw the title of Vancouver Sun spirituality and ethics columnist Douglas Todd’s latest article come through my reader this afternoon: “Embattled Clergy Could Use Christmas Empathy.” Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I read on to discover why I might be the appropriate destination for someone’s Christmas empathy. Read more

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