What is Christmas supposed to be? My Dad spent more than three years in North Africa and Italy during World War II and never made it “home” for Christmas.  My mentor Rolf Hanson used to talk about spending one Christmas on his LST in a typhoon in the Pacific.  My good friend Jake Ryder spent […]

Tomorrow before we eat, my wife will ask us each to identify someone or something for which we are thankful.  I’m thinking of my “Top Ten:” My wife Michele, who proves her love for me and her commitment to our life together daily.  What a great gift it is for her to “be there” for me, […]

My wife and I never talked with our daughter about Santa Claus.  It was a conscious decision we made, and one we have never regretted. We made the decision because we wanted to focus as much as possible on the birth of Jesus as the real reason we celebrate Christmas. We also wanted her to […]

Last time I wrote about one of two questions I believe the Apostle Paul raises in his Letter to the Philippians.  “If it takes a village to raise a child, which village does any of us want raising the children we’ve been given to love?” is the critical question. The second question Paul raises is […]

In our Tuesday Bible Study we’ve been working our way through Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.  I chose the letter because I knew it was written to Paul’s “favorite” congregation; and I knew it would have something to say to u about healthy relationships. In fact, Paul has a great deal to say in Chapters […]

In Adult Education we are using the course In Heaven’s Name, Why on Earth?  It’s a course about discipleship and healthy relationships. One of the issues we’ll be discussing is money.  We’ll talk about “whose money is it?”  We’ll also need to say something about tithing.  I have real issues with tithing when it comes […]

Wednesday night classes have started for 7th and 8th graders; on October 25 we celebrate the Rite of Confirmation for three of our young people.  So again this fall I find myself asking: Who is being confirmed?  Who is doing the confirming?  What is really being confirmed? Because when I was in confirmation class, the […]

We had quite a conversation at the last Parish Planning Council meeting.  While we all seemed to be of the same mind about the chapter in The Strategically Small Church that we are reading and discussing together, there were some differences of opinion about another matter we discussed. For this blog the particular issue is not […]

On our most recent youth trip we stayed two nights in a lake cabin owned by Jamie’s friend.  She and her husband were kind and generous to allow our group to stay there.  Even with three beds in each of the bedrooms and three couches in the living room, we were a big enough group that […]

Is this communication? I suppose on the one hand it is, at least to a certain extent.  I write something and people respond–some in writing, others with a verbal comment.  The fact that I appreciate the comments is not lost on me.  When someone responds to a blog I have posted, it lets me know […]