A "free range" pastor, counselor, author

Tag Church

Going to Church

You’ve probably heard it before, but it’s a classic, and there’s a lot of truth to it isn’t there?  A variation I’ve heard, “Going to McDonald’s doesn’t make you a hamburger either.”

Transformation not Evacuation

"The good news that Jesus proclaimed is not an evacuation plan for heaven but a transformation plan for humanity on earth." Brian McLaren

I heard Brian McLaren speak yesterday and he summarized in a sentence what I have often felt in my heart and thought about.  In my tradition of evangelical christianity there is so much emphasis ...

Church Simplified

“Jesus never asked anyone to form a church, ordain priests, develop elaborate rituals and institutional cultures, and splinter into denominations. His two great requests were that we “love one another as I have loved you” and that we share bread and wine together as an open channel of that interabiding love.” Cynthia Bourgeault

It's pretty simple isn't it?!  How did church get so complicated?  So many are hungering to get back to the basics without all the church bureaucracy.  Consider joining my FB group Church Anonymous...

A Parody of Modern Church Services

A Parody of Modern Church Services. It’s important to laugh at ourselves from time to time isn’t it? To not take ourselves too seriously? Sometimes to even laugh at our own most sacred traditions in order to keep them fresh,… Continue Reading →

Crash Helmets Needed for Worship

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.” Annie Dillard

Many Christians are leaving the church not to abandon their faith but in order to save their faith and to have an adventure with "the waking God who is drawing them to where they can never return."...

Church as an AA Meeting

"I do not believe that such groups as these (AA) are perfect any more than anything is perfect, but I believe that the church has an enormous amount to learn from them. I also believe that what goes on in them is far closer to what Christ meant his church to be, and what it originally was, than much of what goes on in most churches I know. These groups have no buildings or official leadership or money. They have no rummage sales, no altar guilds, no every-member canvases. They have no preachers, no choirs, no liturgy, no real estate. They have no creeds. They have no programs. They make you wonder if the best thing that could happen to many a church might not be to have its buildings burn down and to lose all its money. Then all that the people would have left would be God and each other." Frederick Buechner
 

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