Are you the "brain specialist"...?Sorry! No posts for a couple of days. As a partial explanation, I offer this old bit from Monty Python:T. F. Gumby: My brain hurts!Specialist: Well let's take a look at it, Mr Gumby.(Gumby specialist starts to pull up Gumby's sweater. )T. F. Gumby: No, no, no, my brain in my … Continue reading My Brain Hurts!

Polarized Opinions (sorry no Ackroyd pictures!)Surely everyone older than 40 remembers the Old Saturday Night Live Weekend Update. And they remember the infamous "Point Counterpoint" in which Dan Ackroyd would holler, "Jane, you ignorant, misguided (expletive)". It made us laugh, largely because Dan had no fear, and when he got mad about an issue, he … Continue reading Can't We All Just Get Along?

Soul SearchingDo you know anyone involved in youth ministry? Youth Director, Jr. High Leader, Senior High, College? Perhaps even a youth volunteer from your church that you respect and admire? If so, head here, or to your local book store today, and purchase "Soul Searching" by Christian Smith and Melinda Denton. Buy them this book, … Continue reading Youth Workers, Alert!!

Farewell, for now, JulieToday's news:United Air Wins Court Battle Over Pension PlansRumsfield Seeks Leaner ArmyChina Rules Out Sanctions to Pressure North KoreaAnd in our world, our dear friend Julie today went Home. The cancer she fought for almost a year was more than she could bear. Julie's husband Tony, summed up the struggle so very … Continue reading Goodbye, For Now…

A fitting poem, for Mother's Day:The LanyardBilly CollinsThe other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room,moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,when I found myself in the L section of the dictionarywhere my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.No cookie nibbled … Continue reading The Lanyard

Our only hopeSometimes, it helps to have a sense of perspective. Last night, the chapel of our church was filled with more than 100 people, all there for one purpose; to pray. Our dear friend Julie, has been given less than two months to live by her doctors. Julie has been fighting cancer now for … Continue reading Lord, Hear Our Prayer

The Long and Winding RoadAs some might have surmised by my somewhat not so vague posts over the course of the last couple of months, during the past several years, our family has witnessed the dsyfunction, denial, and decline of a once fairly significant evangelical church. Over the past several months, this has declined into … Continue reading The Long and Winding Sojourn

Bible in one hand and newspaper in the otherThe great reformed preacher Karl Barth once said that sermons should be written with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. As the principal author of "The Barmen Declaration," he was the intellectual leader of the German Confessing Church, the Protestant group that … Continue reading Bible, Newspaper, and the Internet 10×10

Not your fathers churchA quick stop at Starbucks (my daughter Heather loves Mocha Frappachinos) and we were off to Mosaic, our second church for the morning. If Sierra Madre Congregational is like California in 1975, Mosaic (to me, mind you) is like, well, um, lets see, the Planet Zork in 2053. No sanctuary, no hymnals, … Continue reading Tale of Two Churches, Part Two

Your father's church...As some of you may know, I have been doing some church exploring for the past nine months or so. I have posted about it before here and several other different places. Today, I went to church twice. And I have lots of things spinning around inside my head now. A disclaimer before … Continue reading A Tale of Two Churches