After spending five years serving as the youth pastor in a church that held its weekly youth service during “big church”, I knew I wanted my next congregation to be one in which families worshiped together, where worship and faith formation (or...
Today, I'm linking up with Kate Motaung's Five Minute Friday. The rules: Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
This week's prompt: Sing.
One of the worst weeks in my professional life occurred when I...
When a senior pastor leaves a congregation, it's always hard.
When that pastor has been there a long time and is beloved, it's even harder.
Such a departure feels like a death. It leaves people grieving and questioning everything they once knew...
One of the questions I hear most frequently from the older people in my congregation is, “Where are all the youth?”
I’ll admit this question frustrates me. Underneath it is typically one of two beliefs:
1. There are no youth in our congregation.
2....
I slunk into worship a few minutes late on Sunday, something that is, unfortunately, not unusual for this harried mama youth pastor. I hurriedly slid into a pew in the back of the sanctuary along with my 10-month old daughter.
A few minutes...
What the book's about: Lauren Winner's Real Sex is a book that talks openly and honestly about sex, confronting the lies both our culture and the church tell about it. It also explores the discipline of chastity.
Why I read this book:...
This fall, my high school teens and I have been discussing various “isms”. On the first week of this series, we wrestled with materialism, using the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler to do so. In this story, a rich young ruler asks Jesus...
Twice since returning from maternity leave, I've attended work conferences with my infant daughter, Hope. The first time, Hope was two months old; The second time, she was five months old. After the first go-round, I instagrammed the picture...
While attending a remembrance about the ongoing atrocities occurring in the Congo, my husband and I attended our friend, Emile's, Congolese church.
One of the things I vividly remember about that worship service was the young children. There were...
In grad school, I took a class called Theology of the Church taught by Dave Rahn. During it, we talked often about the form and function of the church. Dave's point was that form should always follow function, not the other way around. In other...