Three weeks ago this morning my plane from Liberia by way of Ghana touched down in New York. My adventure had come to a close and on the very long overnight flight I once again got used to things like toilets that flush, drinks with ice and in-flight movies (by the way, The Butler is […]

If you’re a regular reader of this space you know that missions are important to me.  In fact, if I could only have the church do one thing, I would skip worship, Sunday School and (gasp!) even committee meetings and just do missions.  But clearly missions would be more difficult without the other things. How […]

It was reported to be the largest gathering of world leaders in history.  The funeral services for Nelson Mandela were held in a cold rain in a soccer stadium, but a hundred thousand or so people still came out to celebrate his life and mourn his loss. His contributions went beyond partisan politics and redefined […]

I had a great consultation last week with a pastor who had an interesting dilemma, one that many wish they were in.  The church was about to receive a significant bequest from a member and he was looking for some guidance before meeting with the family to discuss its best use in ministry. I, of […]

An estimated $16 billion dollars was embezzled worldwide by those in charge of churches and religious organizations in the year 2000. That’s according to Janet Jamieson, a member of the accounting faculty at the University of Dubuque and an expert on finances in local United Methodist churches. She’s also married to Phil Jamieson, an elder […]

Did you notice that this year at Annual Conference we lost 37-4?  No, that’s not the score of the competition between the Bishop’s Cabinet and the Youth.  That was the retirement/ordination score.  We retired 37 elders this summer and ordained just 4 new ones who were under age 35.  To be fair, we also ordained […]

  Everyone talks about leaving a better planet for the children.  Why nobody tries to leave better children to the planet? That’s one of my favorite quotes, and as a parent of two above average teenagers, it is one that I have taken to heart for the last 16 years. We do an awful lot […]

Gordon Gee, the bowtie wearing President of The Ohio State University, has announced his pending retirement. Too bad. Don’t get me wrong, Dr. Gee has a brutal schedule and if he’d rather spend his days playing golf and sipping a lemonade in a rocking chair on his front porch, I don’t blame him.  But this […]

I just finished doing two Consecration Sunday programs. I finished the first one and they reported an average increase of 25% in their pledges. I figured there was no way I could ever beat that. But the next week the second church reported an average increase of 26% in the pledges received. So what’s the […]

I spend a lot of time listening to people who are smarter than I am. Perhaps because there are so many of them out there! Marcus Buckingham is a pretty smart guy and a management guru. One of his basics is that we need to do a self-assessment and figure out what our strengths are […]