Yes, I call out unhealthy church systems all the time. Yes, I rant and rave about equality. Yes, I believe sometimes people need to leave church-as-they-knew-it to save their souls. Yes, I am deeply disturbed by how power and control has hurt so many. But I also still do love the “church.” I believe in […]
Read Morerest, sheloves, blogs, faith shifts & summer.
it’s july 1st. we just got back from dropping our #3 off at college on the east coast for his summer-start and we are tired & sad & happy & proud & missing him already. as i mentioned last week, after a wild and full week of grief, i am going to be taking 2 […]
Read Morewhat if…
i was at a really lovely meeting a few weeks ago with a bunch of pastors, and it was wonderfully hopeful except for one thing–there were only three female pastors and a whole lot of white male ones, and not one person of color. even though i know this is reality, it still always startles […]
Read Morethe difference between "cultivating communities" and "building churches"
i originally wrote this post in 2010, and it’s part of down we go. but in the past couple of weeks i’ve had some interesting conversations that reminded me of it and i thought i’d pare it down and re-post it. it’s funny, still, after these years, my thought is pretty much the same except […]
Read Morehealers, bridge-builders, and community cultivators
it was a great weekend at transform 2014 in san diego. it was lovely & inspiring hanging out with old friends & making some new ones, and on my middle-of-the-night-and-trying-to-stay-awake drive from san diego to LAX to catch a morning standby flight that ended up getting cancelled, i had a lot of time to reflect. and […]
Read More5 false things the church often teaches us about healing
i have a theory about healing: most of us need it, a lot of us want it, and many of our church experiences have taught us some things that make it harder to get. this makes me sad, mainly because church is supposed to be a place of healing, the safest place on earth to […]
Read Moreoh yes, you are an artist!
when we were in kindergarten and someone asked the class, “how many of you are artists?” my guess is every hand would shoot up. ask a group of grownups the same question, and we’re lucky if there one or two cautiously put up their hands. what is wrong with this picture? what happened to us? […]
Read Morethree things about one word: serving
* this post is part of january’s synchroblog, which is centered on serving others in 2013. i always like the synchroblog because it challenges me to think about certain topics in new ways. i wanted to start a new series in 2013 of shorter posts that are called “three things about one word” and i […]
Read More"but what abouts…"
today i am guest lecturing in two classes at asuza pacific university on down we go: living into the wild ways of Jesus. it’s pretty fun that they’ve used it as a class textbook this semester, and i’m really interested to hear more about what it stirred up. when i was reflecting today on this […]
Read Moredreaming & making what could be, be.
in honor of martin luther king, jr. day, i thought i would post a little excerpt about dreams from my book, down we go: living into the wild ways of Jesus. it was originally inspired by a post i wrote in 2007 for the refuge blog called “we have a dream”; then i modified it […]
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