Tomorrow is the big day – Summer Fest 2007 at Resurrection. Nicole and I did some pre-shopping at the rummage sale today. Nicole found a sculpture / candle holder for her office. We picked up Stratego (unused!), a valance, and a bowl and some stones to hold our unity candle at home. All this for […]
Sometimes I think there is a dichotomy that is set up between planning strategically for the future of a congregation and for allowing the free flow of organic growth or entrepreneurship. I believe that this is a false dichotomy. On Monday, I wrote a post about Avoiding Mad Church Disease that linked to an article […]
This morning my use of Highrise was featured at the 37 signals Product Blog at the post – Pastor uses Highrise to keep track of interactions with his congregation. I have found Highrise to be a great tool for ministry. Thoughts of Resurrection contains my thoughts on faith, life and ministry. Feel free to browse […]
Last week, I signed up for the Everything Must Change Tour at DeepShift to be held in Kansas City, Kansas in the spring of 2008. I am particularly interested in this event, because I am passionate about the renewal of mainline Christianity and in particular the United Methodist Church in Kansas. I believe that shifts […]
Last week, I wrote about Mad Church Disease – the website and book project by Anne Jackson. In that post, I wrote about my experience of working at Resurrection and hearing that there have been many changes in the way in regard to staffing over the past few years to avoid some of the symptoms […]
Mad Church Disease has been burning up the blogosphere, at least the little section that I read. (See links below) This is a site focused on the phenomena of burnout for those that are in ministry. The site includes a survey for those in ministry, spouses of those in ministry, and volunteers in ministry. It […]
In addition to reading blogs, I listen to several podcasts to learn about ministry and hear from others about what is happening in the life of the church. What is a podcast you might ask – find more information here. Here are some to which I currently subscribe (These links will take you to the […]
at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection and I hope that you are not indispensable at your place of employment. My wife, Nicole, brought this idea up to me and I think that she is right on. The true leadership of a congregation should be in the gathered people and not in any single […]
Along with the importance of portable traditions, another thing that I learned at the marriage retreat facilitated by the Soderquist Center was that many of the issues, problems and experiences that I have as a pastor are not clergy issues, they are leadership issues. Sometimes I find myself naming my role as a pastor as […]
Mike King brought my attention to this video via this post. I agree with Mike that it is a great combination of art, music and technology. While I was at Wesley Seminary, I was exposed to the Luce Center for the Arts and Religion which was constantly at work to integrate arts into the life […]
This morning my wife, Nicole and I are driving to Rogers, Arkansas with Dustin and Shelly Petz to attend a marriage retreat hosted by The Soderquist Center. It will be held at Greystone Estate in Rogers, Arkansas. A couple weeks ago, we received a phone call from Bishop Jones‘ wife Mary Lou Reece asking what […]
Please visit http://www.cor.org/youtube and http://www.youtube.com/seeinggray for information about the January 2008 sermon series at Resurrection. I recently read about a fascinating application of YouTue in the ongoing presidential debates – The CNN / YouTube debates. Here is the video explaining the concept… I think this is great. The playing field is leveled across the country […]
Rev. Andrew Conard 