A soundbite is a catch-phrase, a sticky statement — a few words strung together representing a lot more than just the collection of words used as a stand-in for a much broader topic. The better soundbites fit easily on a sign that gets carried to the streets by...
I realized back in the fall that despite entering the pandemic with a goal of improving my eating habits, my weight reached a new high. Unfortunately, it still took me a couple months to react and deal with some bad habits adding to my expanding waistline. The anxiety...
July 4th hasn't fallen on a Sunday since 2010. I preached my first sermon on that day the first week I arrived in Flint as Asbury's pastor. God's call on my life to speak to others about the good news of Jesus Christ has proven to be the greatest gift I have ever...
J. J. Warren speaking at United Methodist Church General Conference… credit Mike DuBose UM News In a call to reclaim both the church and the meaning of “queer,” J. J. Warren, in his book, Reclaiming Church, writes that “The Church has institutionalized racism, sexism,...
Many of us hide our true identities from the visibility of others. We hide who we are even from people close to us. J. Warren, in his book, Reclaiming Church, shared a childhood story about a Halloween costume that his mother made for him. That year, J. J. took to the...
Catching Fire is the 2nd novel of The Hunger Games, a trilogy series written by Suzanne Collins. The setting is a dystopia called Panem, located in North American. Panem consists of a wealthy Capitol and 13 districts in varying states of poverty.2 Each year, children...
Tom Hanks, in the movie, A League of Their Own, said what men coaching teams of young boys and girls have said far too many times. "There's no crying in baseball!" The line in the script was not referring to an understanding found in a book of rules memorized by...
We finished our study of The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs by Joel Salatin and completed our worship series, Living water. We learned how connected we are to each other, to our own identity, to the earth, and to God. The world is an interwoven tapestry, and Joel Salatin's...
Piglets are crowded in a nursery at Greg Boerboom’s farm in Marshall, Minn. Credit Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times According to research published in the National Academy of Sciences Proceedings, more than 17,000 deaths a year are attributable to pollution from...
As a pastor, I get to hear a lot of stories. My least favorite stories are told about persons not in the room and involve something this person did or didn't do that created anxiety in the storyteller. These stories are particularly annoying when I'm the one telling...