Request for Prayer Mar15

Request for Prayer

We’ve talked a lot about prayer in recent weeks on this space. I learned a lot from those conversations and am grateful for them. One of the things I learned, and continue to learn, frankly, is that it’s important not just to pray, but also to ask others to pray for you, as by honoring...

Renew 52 Update

A little over a month ago, I told you about Luther’s free e-book on congregational renew called, appropriately enough, Renew 52: 50+ Ideas to Revitalize Your Congregation from Leaders under 50. The book is available in formats for iPad, Nook, and Kindle and, more recently, as a pdf file...

Preaching the Story Oct02

Preaching the Story

This week I am spending most of my time reveling in the annual preaching conference hosted at Luther Seminary (where – full disclosure J – I teach! 🙂 ) called the Celebration of Biblical Preaching. And it is a celebration – full of lively plenary presentations, great workshops,...

Money Can’t Buy Me Love…Or Can It? Jun12

Money Can’t Buy Me Love…Or Can It?

Near the end of July I’ll be participating as one of nine keynote speakers at a conference called “Rethinking Stewardship” at Luther Seminary. I’ll be joining the likes of Chris Farrell (of Minnesota Public Radio and APM’s Marketplace Money) and Nathan Dungan (of Share, Save, Spend) to talk about new approaches to stewardship. Our understanding of stewardship is that it’s not simply asking people for money but helping them relate to money in light of their faith – something almost every Christian I know has stated as a desire. How, that is, does our faith in Christ inform our lives as economic as well as spiritual beings? How...