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Order your #RunRevRun Shirts Today!

August 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

Yes – it’s true. You too could be JUST as happy as the people above while wearing your brand new #RunRevRun performance micro-fiber running shirt! Sorry for the delay after hinting about making shirts months ago, but things have been busy. I went ahead and used Zazzle to make and sell the shirts, frankly because it was easiest. I created three products to choose from (but if you go to the site, it looks like you could choose any other shirt you want as well):

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Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , ,

The Modern Meetings Revolution: For Churches

August 29, 2011 13 Comments

I remember my first few weeks of starting up my first church job after seminary – I was still getting used to working full-time, trying to find my groove, and honestly, not 100% sure how best to be spending my days. But I will tell you – that meetings seduced me. I could be on my way to a meeting, and there was no little voice in the back of my head saying, “Are you sure this is the best way to be spending your time?” Of COURSE it was – because I was in a meeting – and churches do meetings – and therefore, I was doing ministry.

But let’s be honest. Most meetings suck.

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Filed Under: Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

The Fellowship of Presbyterians: Thoughts from Afar

August 26, 2011 28 Comments

Full Disclaimer: I am not currently in Minneapolis and did not pay money to attend the August Gathering of The Fellowship of Presbyterians. But when I visit their website, they let me know that I can follow along the conversation via the #MN2011 hashtag. So I have been. But if there are any inaccuracies in the below statements, I apologize.

Over 2,000 Presbyterian Church (USA) ministers and elders are meeting together in Minneapolis discussing the future of the church. I’ve been trying to follow the #MN2011 hashtag to see what type of stuff has been discussed. And I will admit that I bring a LOT of preconceived notions to this conversation, but also have friends who are there and am trying to remain open. These are a few of the things that have stood out to me.

Lots of Missional Speak

At least from the Twitter stream, there has been a lot of talk about being more missional – seeing this new group of Presbyterians being the ones who are really going to get serious about being missional in the world. I don’t have a problem with the missional conversation, I think looking for where God is on mission in the world and joining in with that is really important. Can Presbyterians suck at it? Sure. But does that mean we need to create a separate entity to focus on it? I’m not really sure that’s the best approach.

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Filed Under: Ministry, PC(USA), Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Sticky Faith: Website & Resources

August 19, 2011 2 Comments

One of the things that I found when I first started at my current church, was how many of the college students I met, students who had grown up at our church and were very active members of our youth group and other church programs, were not connected to any type of faith community after graduating high school.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the state of affairs with most churches today, I’d guess. And the question for youth workers is how to create a faith that’s sticky, a faith that will carry these students through their college years and beyond. Of course, there are many different perspectives on this issue of faith formation for young adults. Another perspective I’ve heard from college chaplains, is that we actually hope that students WILL step away from their faith the first couple years of college, to deconstruct or unlearn much of what they believed when they were younger, so that they can claim a faith that is actually theirs and one that they can believe in more strongly.

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Filed Under: Ministry, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,