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church renewing the church

Why Numbers Matter in the UMC – Naming Reality (1 of 3)

Vitality seems to be the talk of The United Methodist Church. From the invitation to be a Vital Congregation to tracking metrics through Vital Signs, there has been a wide variety of response to the movement to increasing the level of reporting of involvement across several areas of local churches. I have heard a great deal […]

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fun life

Raving Bull @KansasStateFair

You read that correctly, Raving Bull. This weekend I had the chance to go to the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson, KS. It was great to spend time with my family, see them win ribbons and spend time with Jeff, Amy and Ricky Slater. I love the State Fair – Pronto Pups, Domestic Arts building, […]

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Bible life

Scripture Monday – Psalm 63:1

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1, NIV). I love the vivid description of seeking God. Thirst is powerful in a land where there is no water. I aspire to seek God in this way, […]

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leadership life

Leadership and Reading At the Right Level

Last week, I was reading Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You?: Dr. Seuss’s Book of Wonderful Noises to my son when I realized that I was holding the book at a level that was easy for me to read and not one that was great for him to see. I quickly changed the angle of the […]

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blog leadership ministry

A Year Ago on Thoughts of Resurrection – September 2010

Digging through the archives of this blog, I found a few posts from a year ago that I continue to find value in today. I invite you to take a look back with me. With all the talk about metrics for congregations in the UMC, what about a Monetary Incentive for Spiritual Growth? Authority and Responsibility – What is […]

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renewing the church united methodist church

Starting New Churches – An Interesting Story

Thanks to Tim Stevens for bringing this story to my attention via this post – One Church Becomes Two… Without Splitting. Beach United Methodist Church, in Jacksonville, Florida will be launching one of their worship venues, Eleven 22, as a new non denominational church in 12 to 18 months. You can read more about it at […]

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leadership

Are You Making Progress on the Issues that You Care About?

One of the Kansas Leadership Center’s Civic Leadership Principles is: Our own defaults, how we would usually or unconsciously react or intervene in a situation, can be significant barriers to making progress on the issues we care about. There is a lot to be said for this principle as well as the others in the […]

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life

Labor Day 2011

Although today is the quintessential end of summer, I can’t really recall it having felt like that to me. Growing up, I was usually in school before Labor Day and this was really the end of summer. It may have been a chance to have a picnic or cook out in the backyard – kind […]

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leadership

StrengthsFinder 2.0

Recently the Resurrection West staff all took the Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0 as part of team development. My top strengths are: Analytical Learner Responsibility Deliberative Strategic The assessment is designed to determine our talents – what we are naturally good at. It could be a secular way of looking at spiritual gifts. One of the valuable […]

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ministry worship

Living Without Fear in an Age of Terror

I am preaching this Sunday at Resurrection West. I am looking forward to the opportunity to share good news with the congregation. I am particularly looking forward to it as I did not have the opportunity to preach while serving as Pastor of Resurrection Online. We are in the middle of a series in which […]

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leadership ministry united methodist church

First Two Weeks at Resurrection West

I have had a great first two weeks as part of the Resurrection West team. I started as Associate Campus Pastor on August 15 and have loved the opportunity to be part of what God is doing through this community in the western part of Johnson County. There is an amazing team of staff and […]

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blog

Blog Anniversary – 5 Years

I published the first post on this blog five years ago. At that time I was using blogger.com as the platform and was thinking about using it as a tool to communicate with the congregation for whom I cared. A lot has changed since then, but some things have stayed the same: I hope that […]