Categories
communications life

Do You Info Snack?

I sure do. I recently heard this phrase and found it to pretty accurately describe my habit of using my iPhone to check news, play a game or read email while having down time of even a minute or two. Do you info snack?

Categories
leadership

Two Realities about Jobs

I had a great conversation with a colleague a couple weeks ago about the reality of jobs. Here is what he had to say: When considerino possibile roles or commitments, play to your passions and don’t apologize for it. There will always be a part of every job that you hate. What would you add […]

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Uncategorized

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 42,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many […]

Categories
ministry renewing the church

Metrics for the UMC: Numbers ≠ Vitality (3 of 3)

At our last district clergy meeting our District Superintendent was speaking about metrics and vital churches and wanted to make one thing clear: Numbers are not vitality. Numbers are contextual. This is so true. Numbers give us insight but they are not vitality. I found a similar thought expressed on Twitter recently Growth ≠ The […]

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changing lives ministry renewing the church united methodist church

Metrics for the UMC: Comparing Stories (2 of 3)

Clearly numbers do not tell the whole story of a local church, annual conference or denomination. There are stories of life change that are more important than raw data. One of the challenges of collecting stories is how to report them. It is far easier to look at a graph of worship attendance at our […]

Categories
ministry renewing the church

Metrics for the UMC: A Question of Counting (1 of 3)

Several weeks ago, I wrote a series about Why Numbers Matter in the UMC and I wanted to follow that up with some thoughts that I have been percolating on since then. Statistically, for metrics to be any good they need to be measuring the same thing across time and among different locations. I don’t […]

Categories
life

Columbus Day 2011

Columbus Day, Columbus Day. Each year the United States, along with other countries in the Western Hemisphere commemorate the landing of Christopher Columbus in the “New World.” There is much that could be said about the legacy that Columbus left, but instead of diving in to what could be a quagmire, I’ll ask instead: How […]

Categories
ministry

Blessings of Ministry – Teaching (3 of 3)

There are many blessings of being in ministry serving as a pastor at a local church. One of these is the chance to teach classes about knowing, loving and serving God. This week I finished the second of a six week class in which we are looking at how we respond to God’s love and […]

Categories
ministry

Blessings of Ministry – Mission (2 of 3)

There are many blessings of being in ministry as the pastor of a local church. One of these blessings is the opportunity to lead our congregation in mission to the community. In my role at Resurrection West, I have the opportunity to work with a great team of volunteers on the Mission team that organizes […]

Categories
ministry

Blessings of Ministry – Babies (1 of 3)

There are many blessings of ministry as a pastor. One of those is to be with families with new babies. In the past several weeks, I have had the opportunity to be with two families who welcomed a new member to their family, as well as pray before surgery for an infant. Each one of […]

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blog

A Year Ago on Thoughts of Resurrection – October 2010

Here are some posts from Thoughts of Resurrection one year ago, that I think you might find interesting. Take a look… Will.i.am makes me smile – and he still does! Nothing to Do but Save Souls in the UMC – What else is there? Groundbreaking at Resurrection West – I had no idea that I would be at […]

Categories
Bible changing lives

One Day

“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” Psalm 84:10, NIV This verse reminds me of two things, which happen to be connected together. The first is an experience that I had in college at One […]