The Scandal of Christmas: 12-30-21

The Scandal of Christmas: 12-30-21

German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived 39 years, the last 12 under Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Nazis murdered Bonhoeffer at Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, 1945, as an anti-Nazi dissident and participant in a plot to assassinate Hitler. During the...
The Scandal of Christmas: 12-30-21

The Last Supper: 12-23-21

Dear friend, This Advent, with our Christmas Eve Communion service in mind, I’ve pondered Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco, “The Last Supper.” I remember a joke I once saw on the internet. Jesus enters a restaurant with the twelve and says to the host, “A...
The Scandal of Christmas: 12-30-21

Staying Agile in 2022: 12-16-21

A few years ago, I read The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age by Lutheran Seminary professor of leadership Dwight J. Zscheile. Zscheile wrote this book in 2014. He couldn’t have known what was coming six years later, but his book written...
The Scandal of Christmas: 12-30-21

The Craft of Preaching: 12-9-21

Recently, I was in Corbin. My colleague Alex Lockridge, pastor of the First Baptist Church there, invited me up for a meeting. After the meeting, Alex and I sat in his office and talked over coffee. Kids. School. Homelife. Pastoring. Our conversation stopped skipping...