Recently someone asked me: Why did you feel compelled as a person of faith to march on Saturday? I’m a Love-God and Love-Your-Neighbor type of Christian. I believe that love is to be practiced with heart, mind, soul, and strength.…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ R
Retreat: How to Plan Your Writing Retreat Have you ever wished for an uninterrupted time of focused writing or editing? Yet you don’t want to sink back into binge writing that drains your life and energy, making you want to abandon…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ E
Eagle’s Eye View When I began my dissertation some moons ago, I attended a workshop where I learned a few strategies and approaches that I still use today when I write. The workshop facilitator, Dr. Cynthia Ganote, a sociologist and life coach, is…
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Review: “The Calling” Documentary
Review: ‘The Calling’ a hopeful portrait of religious leadership* Becoming a pastor, priest, rabbi or imam is no simple matter. The Calling, a new four-hour documentary premiering on PBS, follows seven men and women on their paths to becoming religious…
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Ordinary Time: Wild with Words
The Body Remembers The grass was warm and dry under my bare feet. The labyrinth brought back the familiar feeling of rushing to the center, and long pausing at the middle, and dragging my feet with a desire to stretch…
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Wednesday Words for Writers – G
Go! Go! Gooooo! Sometimes the main thing holding us back from getting our writing done is simple inaction. We just need to go! Sit down. Open the document and go! We know what needs doing and simply need to do it.…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ D
Desk A clean desk invites fresh writing. And it can be a ritual or signal that it is the right time and place to write. Recently I visited a man who has started numerous Montessori schools. If he said to me…
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Honoring Carolyn Blevins
Today at a shared meeting between the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion and Baptist History & Heritage Society meeting in Waco, Texas, we will honor Carolyn Blevins with a festschrift, which is an academic book that honors the writing and contributions of a scholar…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ C
Confidence Crisis This is part of the occasional series Wednesday Words for Writers. Check out previous posts on the letter A and the letter B. This post comes from a recent response I made to one of the academic writers that I…
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Introducing Martha – Anatomy of a Schism
When the search committee from Monroe Corner Baptist Church first phoned, Martha said to herself, “This is never going to happen. They are not going to call a woman!” Nevertheless, she took a risk and entered the search process with them. To her…
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A Blessing for the Preachers
Festival of Young Women PreachersApril 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. Bless…
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Easter – Practice Resurrection
These orchids from Thailand are endangered. Whole regions are absent their beauty although they used to grow wild in many places around the region. I took these photos as I walked the trails in an orchid farm near Chiang Mai.…
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Anatomy of a Schism – Book Cover
I’m a little stunned by this… When I was testing out possible book cover designs last fall, I never dreamed that University of Tennessee Press would take my suggestions outright. But I’m so completely delighted that this will be my book…
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Epiphany | Martha Stearns Marshall Month
Martha Stearns Marshall Month*Six Stages of Why You Should Invite a Woman to Preach Why should you invite a woman to preach in your church during Martha Stearns Marshall Month, this February? Well, it depends on where your church is along the…
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Advent | Week 1
HOPE For Advent this year I’m taking up the invitation from the Anglican Communion to pray through the season with an #AdventWord each day and an accompanying photo or video. This post is the summary of Week 1 of Advent. Hoping…. #WAKEUP…
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Ordinary Time – Praying for Faith Leaders
For everyone who needs to preach and pray publicly this weekend – from any faith perspective – and especially Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, I’m praying with and for you and the tensions you hold as you … … speak…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ B
Blocks What usually comes to mind when you think of “writer’s block”? Is it the blank page or flashing cursor on the screen? The stories and words that won’t be fully formed in your mind? Or is it that elusive idea that…
Read MoreOrdinary Time #KellyOnMyMind
Praying for Kelly Gissendaner… and putting the prayers into action The following six messages can be tweeted out in succession – each already has links and hashtags to advocate for Kelly’s life. How can you help commute the death sentence of #KellyGissendaner?…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ A
ASK Writing is often a solitary enterprise. Yet all kinds of connections are needed for writing to begin, to improve, to be published, and of course to be read. In the early stages of writing one of the best things a writer can do…
Read MoreOrdinary Time – An Evening of Prayer and Worship for Unity
Last night pastors, congregations, professors and students gathered from all around Nashville, Tennessee, to remember the nine men and women who were brutally murdered in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17 at Mother Emmanuel AME Church. We met at Woodmont Baptist…
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