This year. This year has been exhausting, dripping in grief and loss. No way around it. And yet. The exhaustion, grief, and loss are not the whole story. There are small miracles and moments that inspire gratitude. One thing I…
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3MMM | Episode 88: Shepherding Justice
Nashvillians know Rev. Dr. Judy Cummings as a social justice advocate, pastor, and community organizer. Yet she understands herself to be a shepherd at heart. Dr. Cummings, pastor of New Covenant Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, is a recognized leader,…
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3MMM | Episode 86: Where God is Present
Where is God present? This is a question that circles through my fourth and final conversation segment with Dr. Pete Ward who teaches in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, UK. Over the last few weeks we…
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3MMM | Episode 84: Why Music Matters
In our last Episode 83, Pete and I talked about why ministers need to study culture. He gave us two reasons: People come to seminary shaped and formed by culture innately — largely unawares. Reflexivity is that significance of learning…
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3MMM | Episode 83: Why Culture Matters
The first time I met Pete Ward in person we had a theological argument. We also had drinks and some laughs in a mutual friend’s living room. As I recall, Mary McClintock Fulkerson and I might have teamed up against…
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3MMM | Episode 82: Ethical Wills
Chaplaincy Jennifer Hundley Batts Thomas sat down with me in the late spring to talk about ethical wills. She helped me to share with my students in the Death, Dying, and Bereavement course at Union Theological Seminary about the significance…
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3MMM | Episode 81: Beyond the Walls
This week we are sharing our final conversation with Rev. Alisha Smith Haddock. What a joy to speak with her this month about her calling to do justice work and her many collaborations to rebuild North Nashville after the March…
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3MMM | Episode 80: Called to Collaboration
This week we are going deeper into our conversation with Rev. Alisha Smith Haddock. She is helping us see how multiple factors are impacting the community of North Nashville. Back in March 2020, Nashville was hit hard by tornados that…
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3MMM | Episode 79: Called to Justice
“I knew early on I was called to this work.” -Rev. Alisha Smith Haddock Called to ministry Vocational calling comes in all different sizes, shapes and forms. Traditional congregational ministry, in spite of what people think, is not the only…
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3MMM | Episode 78: Grief Rituals
LOn Sunday afternoon I hosted a conversation on Zoom with friends from my childhood church. Together we were remembering one of our friends, a fellow youth group member, who died earlier this summer. It was good to be with each…
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3MMM | Episode 77: Risking Care
This summer has been one of the hardest on record. What a gift to have the wisdom, insights, and pastoral presence of Rev. Dr. Stephanie Crumpton to guide and inspire us! This week, Dr. Crumpton, who is associate professor at …
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3MMM | Episode 75: Sacred and Rigorous Care
How does giving love, attention, and care to women and girls who are Black reorient our sense of ministry… making it better everywhere and with everybody? I asked Dr. Stephanie Crumpton this question as a follow up in our recent…
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3MMM | Episode 74: Activism & Legacy
There is a tension that exists for contemporary activists and organizers on how to deal rightly with the legacy they have been handed from ancestors and elders in the ongoing work of radical Black liberation and freedom. ~Dr. Stephanie Crumpton…
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3MMM | Episode 73: What are you here to do?
Sometimes the word of the Lord comes. It might be while you’re doing the dishes. It happened that way for Dr. Stephanie Crumpton. It was her first semester teaching at Lancaster Theological Seminary. It was 2014. Her new students were…
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3MMM | Episode 72: Caring for Black Girls & Women
“You can’t keep ignoring the particular kind of grief that women and girls carry to the altar each week.” Dr. Stephanie Crumpton Dr. Stephanie Crumpton, McCormick Theological Seminary, joins us again this week to talk about the practice of ministry.…
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3MMM | Episode 71: Self Care in Community
There is something about collecting myself… so I can expect to be collected and depend on the capacity to stop. ~Dr. Stephanie Crumpton In this week’s episode of 3MMM, it is my delight to begin sharing a conversation with my…
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Pandemic Pastoring | Guest Sermon by Lauren Plummer
This Friday we welcome guest blogger Lauren Plummer who offers a encouraging word for #pandemicpastoring. Lauren is a pastoral intern at Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, TN, where she recently preached this sermon in a zoom worship service. We welcome Lauren’s…
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3MMM | Episode 66: Teaching Practice
Teaching. What is important to you about teaching? How has your teaching practice changed over time? How has your pedagogy (designs and plans for teaching) changed in this pandemic season? This week’s episode of 3MMM is especially for everyone who…
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3MMM | Episode 65: Beauty and Joy
If we talk about joy all the time, are we ignoring the great needs and suffering of the world? ~ Mary Clark Moschella In the season of the Coronavirus Pandemic, this is a very important question. Can we indeed hold…
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3MMM | Episode 64: Caring For Joy
Anyone else wake up tired? Easter Monday is a day for taking a big exhale. If you work in and for the church, you just finished the biggest week and high, holy Sunday of the year. You are also carrying…
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3MMM | Episode 63: Listening for the Holy
Holy Week Stop. Drop. And Listen. Holy week is upon us. As one of the two most intense weeks of the church year, perhaps you feel tempted. I know I have been. Tempted to make everything as meaningful and wondrous…
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