Pray. Read. Write. This three-part creative process is one of the most enduring patterns of work in my life. I have been praying and reading and writing and creating as long as I can remember. They are the forms of…
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3MMM | Episode 198: Pandemic Over! Now What?
On May 5 the United Nation World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 global health emergency / pandemic ‘over’! Now what? Well, not so fast. It’s more complicated than that. Even the head of the United Nations says so. The threat…
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3MMM | Episode 197: Pastoral Imagination at Two
Pastoral Imagination at two years old! Here’s a fun way to let you know some things about the book Pastoral Imagination, which turns two this month! My Fortress Press editor Scott Tunseth told me this was a book for the…
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3MMM | Episode 196: Appreciating Pamela Cooper-White
Last week I had the joy of appreciating Rev. Dr. Pamela Cooper-White, at her retirement dinner. A wonderful group came together May 4 at Union Theological Seminary to celebrate our friend and colleague. My task and honor was to reflect…
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3MMM | Episode 195: Appreciation for Bonnie Miller-McLemore
This week and next I invite you to join me in celebrating two of my senior colleagues, so I’ll be offering appreciation for Bonnie Miller-McLemore and Pamela Cooper-White. Vanderbilt Divinity School marked Bonnie’s retirement on Saturday night along with six…
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3MMM | Episode 194: Sustainable Preaching
A few days ago I took part in a conversation with The Bridge for Early Career Preachers. The focus of the webinar was sustainable preaching. The coordinators for The Bridge, Dr. Rich Voltz and Rev. Mandy England Cole invited me,…
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3MMM | Episode 193: Finding Our Way
Everyone I know is simply trying to find our way. Living in a new world and navigating a new era of ministry. Maybe you’re getting tired of hearing me say this?! But I think it’s important. So I keep saying…
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3MMM | Episode 192: Eastertide and a New Study Guide
Easter is not just a day but rather a whole season: Eastertide. Throughout the year, and in the season of Eastertide, our call as followers on the way of Jesus is to practice resurrection. To celebrate life and new birth.…
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3MMM | Episode 191: Talking Through Tragedy
Talking through tragedy, creating sanctuary in a crisis, and accompanying people through ambiguous loss amounts to some of our hardest relational work in the practice of ministry. In this week’s episode I want to talk about all three forms of…
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3MMM | Episode 190: Travelogue Introduction
From Winston-Salem North Carolina, to Princeton, New Jersey, to New York City, I’ve been on the road, and today I’m sharing a short travelogue introduction. I want to tell you some stories about my work of teaching, research, friendship and…
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3MMM | Episode 189: Parenting as a Practice
For me one of the best understandings of how I’m raising my daughter and caring for children in my community is to embrace parenting as a practice. That means the work I do in raising children is embodied. relational and…
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3MMM | Episode 188: Graceful Parenting
Graceful parenting. That’s not a description but rather an aspiration and a need. I love being a parent. And for 17 years of married life before giving birth, I also enjoyed being an adult without parenting responsibilities for children. Each…
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3MMM | Episode 187: Mental Wellbeing
We need to talk about the mental wellbeing of our children and teens. These years of forming identity, re-modeling the brain, and flying further from the nest are already a big challenge. Add three calendar years of isolation, disrupted schedules…
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3MMM | Episode 186: Leading in Loss
Leading in loss is one of the great challenges of this moment. Why? The losses are monumental. The leaders are overwhelmed. And grief is rarely easy. Our guest Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity School shares wisdom for attending…
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3MMM | Episode 185: Self Compassion
Self compassion. Who needs it? Well, all the humans. It is hard, however, to love others when we struggle to love ourselves. This can be reality for many people. Sometimes it is just a season. For others it is an…
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3MMM | Episode 184: Integrating Loss
Often at the Three Minute Ministry Mentor we write and share about integration, but integrating loss and grief is a slightly different topic. This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity School about loss…
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3MMM | Episode 183: Ambiguous Loss
What ambiguous losses are you facing right now? I want to speak openly and share a few ambiguous losses that I’m feeling. That is just what I’m asking you to do in this episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor (3MMM).…
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3MMM | Episode 182: Questions for Discernment
On this weekend of remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we invite you to focus on questions for discernment about your vocation. Dr. King invited people to think deeply and transformatively about their work. About justice. About being part…
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3MMM | Episode 181: Discerning Vocation
How are you discerning vocation in this new era of ministry? So much has changed about life in the last 33 months. Tonight at dinner we observed that the waitstaff in the restaurant was also bussing all the tables, cleaning…
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3MMM | Episode 180: Ten Things That Matter
Happy New Year! ♥ I hope you enjoyed ringing in the new year… with friends or at a watch night service at your church or in a quiet dream state in your own comfy bed. Wherever you were, may this…
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3MMM | Episode 177: Tending the Fires | 12.28.2022
Endings and Beginnings When I began blogging in 2009, I called the biweekly posts “Keeper of the Fire.” For the next nine years, I continued tending the fires of my life through writing and reflecting. The fires I tended included…
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