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 | Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! On the brink of this changing season, I offer to you, dear friends, my blessing, and I pray for peace and purpose to take hold in your minds and hearts. I hope with you for healing and for…
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3MMM | Year One Sponsor Thanks
How can I thank thee? Let me count the ways! Coming to the close of Three Minute Ministry Mentor’s first year, I want to pause and offer my personal thanks to our sponsors and partners! It has been a joyous…
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3MMM | Advent Light
Advent is here. For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” (Psalm 122: 8) Advent is one of the intense seasons of life, especially if you lead a congregation or any people of…
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3MMM | Thankful
What are you pouring yourself into? Last week this question invited me to think of all the ways I am pouring myself into my own living and into the lives of others. I heard the question in a circle of…
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3MMM | Year Two Coming in 2020
This time last year, I did not even have my promo for the early episodes of Three Minute Ministry Mentor in hand yet. That first short video announcing a new thing arrived while I was attending the American Academy of…
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3MMM | Episode 50: Embracing Joy
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who are alive.” ~Howard Thurman [1] What makes you come alive? What brings…
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3MMM | Episode 49: Boundaries
Boundaries can serve us well in the practice of ministry. When boundaries give clarity to relationships and prevent the abuse of power, they are worth maintaining. Boundaries can also become barriers in the work of ministry. How does this happen?…
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3MMM | Episode 48: Holy Fierceness
What does holy fierceness look like? seeking justice speaking prophetically asking the right questions at the right moments helping communities see and own their complicity in racist ideologies being bold, taking risks, speaking truth to power identifying discriminations giving thoughtful…
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3MMM | Episode 47: Congruence
“I think it’s sustaining to me to have some basic congruence between what I’m doing and what I think is important.” – Rebecca This week’s episode of 3MMM is a story about Rebecca.* She has some things to say about…
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3MMM | Episode 45: Navigating Conflict
Conflict in ministry is hard. It is hard because it often feels personal. It is hard because it can evoke feelings like anger, self-doubt, fear or shame, feelings that are unpleasant to digest. And it is hard because change of…
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3MMM | Episode 43: Facing Fear
Facing our fears. It can be hard even to admit our fears, much less face them. Fear of loss. Fear of disappointment. Fear of not getting what you want and fear of getting it. Fear of walking down the street. Fear…
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3MMM | Episode 42: Blueprint Stories
Sometimes help is literally in the palm of our hands and we cannot see it. Sometimes our ability to see or imagine or welcome the things we need in life is blocked by the kind of deeply seated beliefs and…
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3MMM | Episode 40: Change over Time
Back to school. Back to seminary. Back to something new! As I greeted students at Union Seminary’s orientation last week, I told them “I am just as new as you are! We will be learning together.” And I feel it.…
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3MMM | Episode 39: Pulled up Short
Orientation. Disorientation. Reorientation. This week is orientation for many people going back to school… including me! I’m starting a new teaching appointment for the coming year. And orientation begins this morning. The week has hardly begun and already I have…
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3MMM | Episode 38: Action + Reflection in Preaching
Recently I joined a few other preachers to talk about the craft of sermon writing. We held our conversation as a panel discussion in a Sunday morning worship service. Six women talking together about how they might plan for preaching…
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3MMM | Episode 37: Salience
Salience. Seeing what is important in a field of things or a situation; sorting through possible meanings to find the one that is pertinent, urgent or more immediate in character. Salience. /ˈsālēəns/ This week’s episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor…
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3MMM | Episode 36: Improvisation
Improvise. Rearrange and fit to size. Change. Adapt. And revise Move it around as time flies. Pivot. Shift. Sidestep. Riff. Play it like jazz. Do you get my drift? A finely honed practice of professional tennis, or vegan cooking, or…
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3MMM | Episode 35: Overcoming Isolation
Erosion. Not a pretty word to think about when it comes to chaplaincy, activism, congregational pastoring, or nonprofit leadership. And yet, it is real. The routines and daily rigors of the work can surely wear ministers down emotionally, relationally and…
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3MMM | Episode 34: Action + Reflection for Beginnings
Action. Reflection. Action. It was winter. I took the pager home, laid it on my night stand, and I prayed it would not go off in the night. Of course it did. I was not really prepared for what to…
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3MMM | 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…
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