At a recent bedtime, I read Bulldozers (Mighty Machines) to our children as one of our stories. After reading, my son stood up and said excitedly, “One day, I going to drive the biggest bulldozer in the world!” I replied with a smile, “You sure could.” In those brief moments, I was struck at how wide the […]
As a pastor, I have the great honor of being part of some of the most significant events in the lives of people. One of these is when a couple is joined together in Christian marriage. Premarital appointments with a couple are crucial as they create the opportunity to: Get to know each other Plan a service of Christian […]
One key to restarting this blog is to more actively listen to others who are writing to similar audiences. Since the death of Google Reader, I have not kept up with blogs. Last week I downloaded Leaf – The News Reader and have subscribed to the following blogs: Great Plains Conference Bloggers Adam Hamilton Now […]
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Blog Reboot: Brain Dump of Titles (3 of 4)
I am in the process of rebooting my blog and want to share the process with you. I started with a tool that helps me succeed at anything, defined a target audience and now want to share a brain dump of some possible upcoming blog posts. Which of these do you find interesting? Helpful? Ridiculous? […]
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Blog Reboot: An Ideal Target Person (2 of 4)
I have been using Lift as a tool to help restart this blog and I thought I would share with you some of that process. One of the steps is identifying an ideal target person – someone for whom this blog is written. So, here goes: The ideal target person for this blog is Methodist […]
I recently wrote a post about my hope that by blogging I will contributing to a middle way / extreme center theological position online. Kim left a comment asking what exactly that means. Here is a summary from our Bishop, Scott Jones, describing the extreme center in Adam Hamilton’s book, Christianity’s Family Tree: What Other Christians Believe and […]
I am a fan of technology. Technology can be used in a variety of ways that vary from mundane, productive, entertaining and more. I have recently started using an app that has made a tangible difference in my behavior in the real world. An app that is helping me make progress on things that I care about […]
It has been 649 days since my last blog post. Much has changed since then. Our children are 3 and 2, respectively. I switched from WordPress.com to a WordPress installation, thereby starting over on traffic and links. I am beginning my third year as the pastor appointed to serve First UMC of El Dorado, KS. […]
I am part of a team from First United Methodist Church in El Dorado, KS attending Leadership Institute 2012. I collected Twitter updates tagged with #li2012. Then I used Wordle to create word clouds with the text of updates during the conference. I edited out Twitter usernames, RT and #li2012 to get a better view of the conversation. […]
As a leader there is value in spending time both: On the balcony – getting a big picture perspective removed from day to day responsibilities and On the dance floor – accomplishing day to day tasks to make progress as an organization. Spending time in either location can be productive, however you cannot spend your […]
There are at least three different possibilities for the life of a congregation: Vital – A vital congregation that is one that is creating places for new people to love God and love neighbor. The ministry and impact of the congregation is expanding. Viable – A viable congregation is one that continues to exist at […]
I have had the opportunity to engage with the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) in the Leadership and Faith: Transforming Communities program over the past year. I wanted to share some of the learnings that I have gathered from my interactions with the KLC. If you can be competent in four things – you will make […]
Rev. Andrew Conard 