Every summer at The Refuge we do a modified Sunday night format called “Summer Camp.” The idea is to focus on practical skills, community building, and a break from our regular Dinner Church format. Over the years we’ve done all kinds of different things ranging from the basic skills of friendship to becoming people of […]
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It’s here tomorrow, yet another holiday that is great for all kinds of people and really hard for many others. I have written about all the major ones at this point–Christmas, Mother’s Day, Easter, and Father’s Day, too. But here we are again. Father’s Day always seems to seek up on us, and I didn’t want this […]
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I’m on a bit of a power-of-community roll right now, revisiting some old posts that have been rattling around in my head. To me, the purpose of community, “the church”, is to have a place, whatever that looks like, to learn to love God & others and to be loved by God & others. Like so many […]
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Today’s post is a day late for Failure Week, but no one cares except for me, ha ha. I am trying to wrap up a few things before a blog break but I’ve been in the thick of a lot of hard stuff this week. In the midst of it, I have been thinking so […]
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I know I can be such a hypocrite. I say one thing and do another. I’m human. I’m doing the best I can with what I have but want to keep improving. I also think the how-do-I-stand-for-what-I-believe-or-think-needs-to-be-said-without-being-mean can be a dilemma. Take the Trump conversation, for example. I believe passionately we need to consider our […]
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One of the things I care the most about is creating spaces and places where people can have hard conversations about life and faith. It’s not the easiest task. And to be honest, it’s much simpler to cultivate a safe space for recovery and healing than it is to create a space to hold our […]
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I always get nervous when I post about this topic because it brings out the trolls. At the same time, I can barely stand how horrid the conversations about abortion seem to go online. I believe in every part of me that there’s a better way to talk about this and find some better solutions together. […]
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This month’s Synchroblog is centered on Anger. Here’s the description: “Anger sometimes has a bad reputation. Some of us have been taught that anger is a negative emotion, something that should be squeezed out, prayed through, avoided. Others of us have been raised in families and churches that never allowed for expression of anger so […]
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Years ago when I started speaking out against the powers-that-be about “church”, I noticed a pattern. Almost the minute something negative was shared, there would be an immediate defensiveness and responses like “be careful about being divisive”, “the church is made up of imperfect people”, “t’s not all bad”, or “I’ll pray for you.” The basic […]
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Some things I originally wrote made it into Faith Shift, and some things didn’t. After multiple conversations in the past several weeks, I thought I’d share some of the on-the-cutting-room-floor pieces of this part of the Appendix to offer some possibilities for those who have friends or family members who are shifting in their faith […]
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