Yesterday, the Kansas West Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church did its last business and celebrated its final worship service. I was a member of the conference for most of my ministry (until 2010) and I’m so glad I
Kids These Days
(Continuing thoughts on trends. What’s going on with youth and emerging adults?) It started with reading Generation Me. Well, no, actually, it started with noticing something different in my college students’ classroom responses. Somewhere between the late 1990s and the
Tumulti Adventum (or Advent Frustration)
Advent may be one of the most difficult of church seasons to observe. Every year we feel various pressures to skip it and go straight to Christmas. People love singing Christmas carols, but the Advent hymns? Not so much. It
One Person Does Make a Difference
Here’s an article from “Insider Higher Education” that I think stimulates some very timely thinking for religious leaders of all sorts. Notice: 1. The word “organic” and what it says about leading change. 2. The word “leadership” (for the same
Watching a Denomination Die
While a grand old institution slowly crumbles, the people who have invested their lives in it look for every glimmer of hope, every shred of evidence to sustain the belief that, really, “we’re doing fine.” Even when we acknowledge trouble,