Apr

06

Ed Dunn – It’s Holy Week, Do You Know Where Your Pastor Is?

This spring I am taking a personal blogging hiatus and have invited some folks to blog in my stead. It is my intention help share some new voices and perspectives with a larger audience and keep my blog active during my break. If you are interested in guest blogging, feel free to submit an idea. Today Ed Dunn offers another post to the guest blogger collection. [...]

0 Comments

Feb

05

What You Never Learn in Seminary and Other Joys of Being a Pastor

[Photo: dolmansaxlil] A few weeks ago I posted the following facebook status update: Exercising my vast pastoral skilz today which included: fixing the wifi, rolling out the garbage bins and unclogging a toilet. The stories kept rolling in from folks who serve churches and have found great joy in the things that one does that not [...]

10 Comments

Jun

24

Reasons Pastors Give for Not Taking Vacation

 [image: mashafeeg] Let me first say that this post should not be misconstrued as a "You all" kind of post as my ability to take vacation is pretty much non-existent. I guess I should first apologize to my family, then to the congregation I serve and then to God for not better valuing the time that is given for [...]

11 Comments

Jun

02

Advice and counsel for those in new calls

[image: innoxiuss] 'Tis the season for new calls to begin in churches throughout our denomination.  Not only are many seminary graduates finding first calls, but because of school schedules, many pastoral transitions happen during the summer months. With these transitions comes advice, both solicited and unsolicited.  I am not sure that I actually heard this [...]

20 Comments

Apr

13

Moderator Monday: Nine questions from a seminarian, a meme’ish

[Image: 1995, my ordination year] Greetings all.  I trust everyone had a revelatory Easter and enjoying some time of rest after Lent and Holy Week. A few weeks ago, I received a note from a seminarian asking me to answer a few questions about pastoral leadership.  As I began to respond, I thought this would [...]

3 Comments

Mar

16

What Makes a Good Pastor?

[image: pupal] I remember when I was in seminary, I used to be pretty judgmental about my colleagues. During classes and other activities I found myself thinking to myself, “I would not want you as my pastor.”  Yeah, yeah, not good, but we have all been there . . . and then we learn to appreciate [...]

13 Comments

Nov

12

What Do We Say to Our Young First Call Pastors?

[Photo by aeshnaton] Greetings all . . . I have been having a wonderful time here in New Jersey* and New York and will report on that later, but I just received a note from a recent seminary graduate regarding the difficulty of finding a call.  This topic has been brought up in many venues as [...]

51 Comments

Nov

07

Bruce and Byron bring greetings to Racial Ethnic Seminarians

There has been so much to reflect upon as of late: the elections, papers, appointments, etc.  Am trying to keep up and will post some more soon.  Until then, here is a greeting that Byron and I just sent off to the Annual Racial Ethnic Seminaries conference held this year at Ghost Ranch.

3 Comments

May

06

USA Today and the Resilient Right

One way you know that you are truly worthy of your Presby-nerd platinum membership status is that you have your google alerts set for things such as "Presbyterian Church (USA)" and/or "PC(USA)"  Lest you mock, if you do not, you run the risk of missing out on the regular rants and musings that make the [...]

8 Comments

Feb

01

My “Day Off” – Creativity or Justification?

[Photo by Joe Lanman] Okay, so it is Friday AM and I am sitting in a cafe here in SF about an hour before my first meeting of the day.  Due to people’s schedules, my schedule and my lack of a complete 24-hour day off from church stuff, I once again, am working on what is supposed [...]

3 Comments

Sep

18

Characteristics of a Postmodern Pastor

[Photo by Godorium Bassanensis] Yes . . . I KNOW, one cannot define the attributes of things “postmodern,” one can only describe them.  Still, if churches and communities are going to explore new ways of raising and nurturing leadership, shouldn’t there be some idea of what makes a good pastor or spiritual leader in the postmodern [...]

7 Comments

Jun

30

Does Race Matter When Pastoring?

About two or three times a years when talking about Mission Bay Community Church, someone makes the assumptions that MBCC is an Asian American congregation.  After trying to politely correct that assumption I am again left with the internal question as Racial Ethnic pastor serving a non-Racial Ethnic congregation, “Does race matter when pastoring?” Here [...]

7 Comments
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