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 […]

Yesterday my wife Chris wrapped up her participation in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  From early Friday morning until yesterday afternoon she and about 1,000 others walked 60 miles around western Cuyahoga County. Many of you are familiar with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, a 5k (3.1 mile) walk […]

I have a hunch that there are lots of churches in our Conference that have put off capital campaigns in the last four years or so.  With a struggling economy and plate income a challenge, it just did not seem like the right time to take on a major campaign. But those churches still have […]

Last week I heard a business guru give his tool to assess the success of small businesses given the difficult economy the last few years. “If you’re still open, you’re a success.”  But then he admonished them to get out of survival mode and plan for the future. I think that’s where we are with […]

It has become a key phrase in our society:  “You can’t be too safe.”  This notion when it comes to raising children prompted Lenore Skenazy to write Free Range Kids, a book and now a blog.  In it, she reminds us that kids need to go out and play and have fun.  If they end […]

Mastercard’s “Priceless” ad campaign is world-famous and fairly well satirized at this point.  In those ads you might expect to see Friendship identified as “Priceless.”  But a survey by the Gallup folks in 1998 puts a definite value on friendship, $118.  That is, that for every friend a church member has in his or her congregation, […]

As the news broke in Japan it wasn’t too long before I got thinking about UMCOR and its role in the relief effort of many of these disasters.  We are blessed to have Japan as the center of much of our United Methodist missionary work in Asia so we had “people on the ground” who […]

Last week’s stock market fluctuations aside, the economy seems to be on the upswing.  Economists point to statistics like orders for durable goods and slowly easing unemployment rates as their proof. I knew it was better in late December by the mail we didn’t receive. At the Foundation we have investments from about 160 local churches […]

When my daughter was younger we bought her a traffic jam game.  It was a puzzle that had a red car that you needed to get out of a parking lot by moving other cars forward and back so the red car could get to the exit.  (I know that was the worst description in […]

When I was growing up you didn’t get braces until your teeth had all come in.  But today the approach is to do braces much younger, often at age 8 or so.  That way they come in straight rather than trying to correct them later.  Many churches equate stewardship with dentistry (getting our members to […]