Welcome to Season One of Three Minute Ministry Mentor. This index will help you link to weekly episodes: blogs, videos, and podcasts. Season One features fifty topics for learning ministry in practice. These topics are the focus of 50…
Read More3MMM | Episode 33: Cultivating Questions
“Questions?” When I took a public speaking course a few years ago, this is how the instructor taught us to end our speeches: Ask, “Questions?” And then wait for the audience to start asking. In ministry, teaching, and lots of…
Read MoreEpic Journey: Writing for My Life
The bells chime for worship. I am walking away from them. My path leads me deeper into the woods, through a cathedral of trees. A lush carpet of green stretches away to my left. Low hanging clouds reflect on the…
Read More3MMM | Episode 28: Thinking Theologically
Thinking theologically. I left my own seminary experience thinking this new way of thinking is one of the most important things I learned in the last few years. And it probably was. One class in particular helped me solidify the…
Read More3MMM | Episode 23: Sabbath
Sabbath. I have been trying to practice a weekly Sabbath very intentionally for about 14 years now. I tried in fits and starts to take time off, and practice Sabbath rest in the years I served the church full time,…
Read More3MMM | Episode 15: Emotional Intelligence
Good Monday morning friends! It’s the first Monday of Lent. How are your Lenten practices going? I am hoping and praying for mercy and grace to lead you along the way this season. I have three things to share with…
Read More3MMM | Episode 13: Stakes of Ministry
In this week’s episode of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor, I share a story from my first call in ministry. I have preached about this moment when I missed the point, thinking the call was for someone else. In particular…
Read More3MMM | Episode 6: Supporting Peers
This week’s episode of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor is about you connecting with your friends as a support for your practice of ministry. Doing ministry is really not solo work, as we already considered in Episode 4: Collaboration. Finding…
Read MorePress Release: Three Minute Ministry Mentor
Nashville, TN – A new 52-week video series, “Three Minute Ministry Mentor” (3MMM), is launching online this Advent. Each video, just three minutes in length, is designed to help ministers by easing the burden of isolation, inspiring attention to learning,…
Read MoreAcademic Entrepreneur
Recently I traveled across the country with some of my newest students to attend a four-day orientation. Each morning, noon and evening we prayed with the brothers in the Benedictine Monastery. In the alternating hours we held our own sessions…
Read MoreImmigration Sermon 6-23-2018
The following homily was offered on June 23 as part of an action to “Stop Jailing Families” which called on Nashville Mayor Briley and Sheriff Hall to untangle their relationship with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and stop detaining immigrants,…
Read MoreWednesday Words for Writers ~ F
Feedback This month I’ve been taking a class in creative non-fiction over at The Porch. A dozen or so women sit around a big plank table each week, and we talk about delicious classics like “You Blow My Mind! Hey,…
Read MorePastoral Wisdom Part 1 ~ Mentoring
Seeking Pastoral Wisdom Part 1: Mentoring It is something most ministers want. And it can feel impossible to find. Yet seeking pastoral wisdom is vital for the work of the church and for leading people of faith. Becoming pastorally wise…
Read MoreOrdinary 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…
Read MoreWednesday 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 MoreAsh Wednesday – 2015
Gimme All Your Love So tell me what do you want me to do… You want me to lay down and play dead and do backflips for you? Walk in your shoes for a while? Tell me, what’s right? Gimme…
Read MoreEastertide VI
May 3, 2014 Tweets about #FoodAndFaith @ecampbellreed “Food and Faith: A Matter of Health and Wholeness” Conversations with Norman Wirzba, Ellen Davis and Wendell Berry St. George’s Episcopal Church, Nashville, Tennessee Advice for young farmers? Be careful, don’t give up…
Read MoreOrdinary Time XV
A Turn to Lived Experience
The study, practice, and knowledge of big ideas in psychology and religion are shifting and changing in the twenty-first century. One of the most substantial changes is that deep thinking about big ideas demands an engagement with the lived experience of real people and situations.
Epiphany V
Wisdom and Folly “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.” Psalm 111:10 January has been a full month for me. It has held more travel than usual, intensive…
Read MoreChristmastide II – It Takes Two Hands
It Takes Two Hands In our extended families we stretch out Christmas for several days. And we try to keep our family meals and gift exchanges to one-per-day. Christmas 2011 is in the books now. It was enjoyable for the…
Read MoreAdvent II : Learning Stories of Advent
Learning Stories of Advent (2011) One of the many gifts of following the church year and circling through the life of Jesus and the life of the church every twelve months, is its orientation of newcomers into the practice of…
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