Reflecting on the Alliance of Baptists The Alliance of Baptists met in mid April in Atlanta, Georgia. We were hosted kindly by the good folks of Northside Drive Baptist Church. Here are some reflections on my time at the annual gathering…
Read MoreEaster IV | A Pastoral Letter to Baptists
A Pastoral Letter to Baptists April 26, 2012 Greetings in the name of the living Christ, who came to us in human form, showed us the way of love, and who is dwelling among us even now. Last week I…
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3MMM | Episode 134: Pastoral Imagination and Care
What do pastoral imagination and pastoral care have to do with each other? I’ve been working on that question for a dozen years. And recently I received a question from a friend that inspired me to articulate the relationship between…
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3MMM | Episode 114: Christians Reimagining Resurrection
Christians are reimagining resurrection. Today we meet a pastor, a chaplain, and a researcher who are asking big questions about person and meaning of Jesus. Do you live with inspiration or with tension about the life and teachings of Jesus?…
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3MMM | Episode 105: Kyndall Rothaus on the Stakes of Ministry
Recently, Kyndall Rae Rothaus shared a story on Instagram TV about pronouns for God. As I listened, she shared about a time when someone read scripture in a worship service and used the gender-inclusive pronoun Ze/Zer for God in the…
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The World Is on Fire | Independence Day?
Counting the Costs of “Independence Day” If one of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t you first sit down and calculate the cost, to determine whether you have enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:26, CEB) If we want…
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3MMM | How the Light Got In – 2019
Each year for the last few, I’ve taken time, with inspiration from my friends and writing pals Duane Bidwell and Frank Thomas, to compile a Gratitude List of Important Things that I have invested myself in during the past year.…
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3MMM | Episode 22: Transforming Injustice
Injustice is a powerful and pervasive reality in our world. Injustice impacts the work of ministry and how we learn pastoral practice no matter our call: pastor, organizer, chaplain, non-profit executive, minister or missionary. Injustices take many forms and do…
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A Blessing for the Preachers
Festival of Young Women Preachers April 7, 2016 | Eden Seminary | St. Louis, Missouri A Blessing for the Preachers Bless these hands as they handle sacred Scripture, and sacred stories, and sacred moments of the preaching and pastoral life.…
Read MoreOrdinary Time IV – God is (Still) Waiting
God Is (Still) Waiting More Baptist churches are calling women as pastors, but the gender gap remains large. This coming Sunday, Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham, N.C., will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first ordination of a woman in…
Read MoreEastertide VIII
Closing the Gap Despite progress, the gender gap among Baptist pastors remains persistent. In recent weeks two prominent progressive Baptist churches moved to call well-known Baptist pastors. Notably in both calls the pastors are women. Riverside Church in New York…
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Ordinary Time XIII
From Access to Equity: Women’s Pathways into the Church “Wherever two or three women gather together . . . the men get nervous.” Judging by the laughter in the room, Molly Marshall’s sound bite of wisdom hit the mark. Marshall,…
Read MoreOrdinary Time X
An Open Letter Seeking Support for Equity for Women in the Church September 17, 2013 Dear Friends, I’m just returning from a great trip to England and Scotland. My purpose for the trip was to present a paper about the…
Read MoreEastertide III
A Six-Word Story* ____________ * This idea came from Six Word Story Everyday. At that site contributors offer pictures worth a lot of words, but they only use six to tell each story. Since that discovery, I’ve posted a number of these short…
Read MoreOrdinary Time XIV
The number of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship churches currently pastored by women?
Five Percent.
Eighteen hundred churches. Ninety women.
You do the math.
This is good news. But somehow laying out the starkness of that figure . . . well, it doesn’t exactly add up to great news.
Speaking & Leading
Upcoming Engagements April 1, 2016 Scholastica Luncheon for Women in Ministry Report from the Thailand Pilgrimage Scarritt-Bennett Center Nashville, Tennessee 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Register Here April 7, 2016 Festival of Young (Women) Preachers Sponsored by the Alliance…
Read MoreOrdinary Time XVI
One of the delights of my vacation this summer was building rock cairns along the way. The first I built were on the banks of the South Fork of the Kings River. We were at the far end of Kings Canyon National Park, the sometimes ignored sibling of Sequoia National Park. My family and I spent a long stretch of one late morning in the Zumwalt Meadow just tossing rocks in the river, wandering along the bank, staring up at brilliant skies.
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