The first worship service in an Episcopal church I ever attended was at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron, Ohio. It was July 4, 1982. The hymns, lessons, sermon, and prayers tended to the special day by focusing on the…

Amazing Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Baltimore, Maryland is the result of a consolidation of three historically white Lutheran congregations. Over the years leading up to the consolidation, each congregation had struggled as the neighborhood changed from a white working-class…

During a recent trip to Israel, I participated in a three-week course at Pardes Institute,1 where I studied the life of Jacob, the halacha (laws) of Shabbat, the history of Jerusalem, and the theme of exile and return. Every day…

Dne day last summer, as my small children were taking naps, I had the chance to lie upon a creaky bed in a summer cottage and spend some precious moments in quiet. Gazing out a nearby window, I looked up…

It’s the fourth Sunday of June, Gay Pride Sunday, at The Riverside Church in New York City. This is a day for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to celebrate their God-given, God-created essence as human beings. Moreover, it is…

At Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, we understand the power of story—so much so that we have set up intentional structures for discovering and bringing meaningful stories to the congregation. This structure consists of a group of three people…

In my work as a congregational consultant, I have discovered that narrative therapy offers a number of lessons that can help church leaders navigate the change process in some distinctive ways beyond the push-pull dynamic that characterizes many congregational change…

The pastoral memoir allows us to overhear the sounds of the gospel reverberating through the life of another minister. It clarifies or challenges our own reckonings of ministry and provides clues to where in our lives God may be found,…