twenty-three

I just finished Doug Pagitt’s Preaching Reimagined - The Role of the Sermon in Communities of Faith, a book we’ve been assigned to read for Senior Staff at the INN which evaluates the current standard for preaching in most churches. Overall it was a pretty easy read with a few challenging ideas.
Pagitt claims that the [...]

So, you’re Presbyterian? You’re into that "emergent" stuff too? Sounds like an interesting combination. Maybe there are others like you.
Adam Walker Cleaveland and Karen Sloane came up with this new website/community called Presbymergent. The idea behind the site is to provide a place for PCUSA members, lay people, pastors, etc. who are interested in the [...]

A couple days late, but maybe the weekly reflection is better suited for being a weekend thing, since we tend to have Friday or Saturday activities at the INN that are worth talking about. Or maybe I get wrapped up in what’s going on and I forget. Either way, here’s to another week.
I just looked [...]

Yesterday I had the privilege to take part in the first of two congregational summits at First Presbyterian Church of Bellingham. Part of a current vision and evaluation process, this summit brought together about 75 members of the church community to discuss the future vision for the church and begin to brainstorm ideas for moving [...]

Welcome to another weekly reflection on my first year in ministry at the INN. The quarter is now in full swing and there’s been a lot happening over these first couple weeks. We had our winter dance, which despite the cold, icy weather, had a decent turnout of students. We also had our first mission [...]

It’s quiet around the office this afternoon, the quiet before and after the storm. It’s been another week of cold and snowy weather and tonight we are having our Winter Dance. Cold weather and prom dresses — what a great combo.
We’re all back here at the INN and in full swing. The whole staff had [...]

Do you remember your first year of college? How about your first year at Western Washington University? I know there’s a few alumni out there who might appreciate this: the WWU Freshmen First-Year blog.
As a part of their expanding first year programs, designed at connecting students with the campus community, working out the transition into [...]

Ahh, the academic break. What a wonderful thing. I don’t intend to gloat to my fellow working world friends out there, but after a year in the "real" world, it is much better to be back on the academic schedule. Winter break was quite nice.
And now, it’s really good to be back. I’m just getting [...]

Last year, when I worked for Logos Bible Software, I had the opportunity to be a part of the formation and marketing of a brand new side business for the company — Room2Think. Logos had the great idea to use some extra office space and transform it into a creative meeting space for local businesses, [...]

I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading this break, catching a chance to finish up on a few that I’d started and prepare for a book discussion with some good friends in a week or so. One book that I’ve been slowly go through with a couple of small group leaders this last [...]