Featured In the Deep End With Grief: Thoughts On Pastoral Care to Those Hurting Most As the previous year comes to a close, I’m reposting some articles from 2014 I wrote elsewhere on the web. This is a post I wrote about grief that originally posted on the blog Antioch Session. I find it hard to carry the weight of my own pain, let
Blog Entries 15 things I learned in 2014 (or at least tried too) 1. Taking risks is worth the unknowns that follow. 2. Progress can be made. Keep working to engineer a new kind of engine. 3. You can expect to find either a door (or a window) in an unlit room, you just have to keeping search for it. 4. Conflict is
Featured We Are The Stargazers (Matthew 2:1-12) Herod and The Theologians Our passage this morning presents two contrasting groups of people discerning the will of God. King Herod and the Theologians on one side and the “three wise men” or Magi on the other. The arrival of Jesus makes for a very real, very large scale, as
Featured Learning the Art of Sketchnote Preaching Many of you know I love “Sketchnote Preaching.” If you’re not sure what that is here is where I was interviewed on Sermon Smith and another one on Sketchnote Army. Below is a post about how I got into doing this, what it is and how you can to
Advent Outline for a Candlelight Christmas Eve Worship Service Immanuel, God With Us. I enjoy putting together meditative worship services. A couple years back I posted this resource for using with a Christmas eve Candlelight Service. I have been working to make an updated one and since it’s just about complete I wanted to post it here for
Featured The Angel of No Going Back or the Day of Visitation (Luke 1:26-38) “Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.” (Luke 1:26–38 NRSV) The day of visitation Our text this morning gives us a glimpse into what early Quakers would call “a
Featured On Being Exiled, Trains and Belonging This is my sermon from this past Sunday: “I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of
Featured On Not Locking Anyone Out – Matthew 25:1-13 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their
Featured Learning to Say Farewell Finally, my brothers and sisters, farewell in the Lord. The letter to the Church in Philippi reflects Paul’s own uncertainty about his life and what I think is his own trying to prepare his community for his passing (cf. 1:6; 1:20–24; 1:27; 2:5–11;
Featured The Sketchnote Workbook I had the wonderful opportunity of being included in Mike Rohde’s new Sketchnote Workbook. This book is both beautifully illustrated and really helpful for learning how to use sketchnotes for all the different aspects of you life. Check it out.
Featured Sketchnote Preaching Awhile back I had an article published over at the Antioch Session blog on sketchnote preaching. If you’re interested in knowing more about sketchnotes and how to use it for your writing and preaching this is meant to be an introduction to the whole thing. I opened my notebook
Featured For What Must Have Seemed Like a Really Long and Drawn Out Slumber (Jonah 3) Confronting Calamity The story of Jonah is propelled forward, we learn, because Calamity looms over Nineveh. We don’t know what kind of calamity it would look like, all we know is that there is pending consequences for the Assyrian empire. And Jonah is told by God to walk headlong
Featured Finding Jonah in the First and Second Half of Life “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went
Blog Entries Sketchnote Study & Discussion Guide for Parker Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness” We are continuing our conversation through Parker Palmer’s book, “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Towards the Undivided Life.” This week I am going to post discussion guides for chapters 4, 5, 6. The way we are doing these groups is sort of like mini-circles of trust. We haven’t
Featured The Metamorphosis of the True Self (Romans 6:1-11) Metamorphosis I want to start with an image from the natural world, that symbolizes the marks of transformation is the metamorphosis of the butterfly. How many of you have had the opportunity to watch a chrysalis transform before your very eyes into a butterfly? I find the metamorphosis of a
Church in Mission Seven Readings in Revelation (A Liberation Bible Study) I have had the opportunity from time to time to write for Barclay Press. They have recently updated their website and created author pages, making some previously unavailable writings available online. Therefore, I wanted to share the link to the .pdf of my upcoming series of reflections on the book
Uncategorized Reflecting on Grief and Pastoral Care I am a monthly contributor to the blog Antioch Session. Antioch Session is a collective blog run by Zach Hoag and Scott Emergy and hosts a number of great writers all who are writing as a means to advance what they consider to be “creative Christianity” around three key areas:
Featured A Hidden Wholeness Chapter 3 – Sketchnotes and Discussion Questions We have been reading through Parker Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward and Undivided Life,” at our church lately and are loving it. I have been sharing our discussion notes each week (Week one and Week two can be found here). Here are the links for chapter three:
Convergent Friends Write the Vision: Quakers, Zines and Participatory Culture This is a synchroblog written for Quaker Voluntary Service, of which I am a board member. The theme is “Quakers and new media.” (Twitter Link #qvssynchroblog) “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed
Featured A Hidden Wholeness Chapter 2 – Sketchnotes Over the next ten weeks or so we at Camas Friends Church are working through Parker Palmer’s book, “A Hidden Wholeness: A Journey Toward an Undivided Life.” I will continue to post our discussion guides and the sketchnotes here for those who may be interested in using them for
Featured Sketchnotes from Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness” Chapter 1 We are reading through Quaker author Parker Palmer’s wonderful book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. As a part of my preparation for leading the group I am making sketchnotes of the chapters. Here are the sketchnotes for the prelude and chapter one and here are
Uncategorized Finding Healing After a Suicide I wrote an article last summer about some of the healing process I have been working on in relation to my step-dad’s suicide. Friends Journal picked up the article, redid a little of it and has published it this month in their issue on mental health. If you’d
Blog Entries A Convergent Model of Hope is Ready To Share I finished my dissertation, “A Convergent Model of Hope: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture,” last November. But it is finally rolling out so that it can be shared with others. I know it’s the case that dissertations aren’t always thought of as super interesting things
Featured Like Seeds Being Poured Out (Matthew 28:16-20) “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples
Featured Hope on a Tightrope Sermon #Sketchnotes Each week as I study, I take a lot of notes. Some of those notes I type into Evernote on my computer, and some of them I sketch out. The stuff that really stands out to me, the important quotes, and image-heavy ideas go down on paper. I love using
