I’m not sure what you’ll think of Amanda Palmer. She is, well, different, perhaps particularly from the kinds of folks that usually show up at our churches. (Although perhaps for that very reason we should listen to what she has to say!) She’s a former street performer turned alternative rock icon. She’s known for pushing boundaries…in her art, her appearance, her lifestyle. She’s bold, brash, unconventional, and at times irreverent. But I think she’s also onto something. Something important, something beautiful, something so deeply human that it is also and simultaneously something divine. She is onto the art of being in...

Of late, two great interests of mine have been 1) working with people to help make the Bible more “useful” and available to us in our daily lives and 2) helping all of us think about money from the perspective of faith. On the “usefulness” of the Bible I know this subject can be a bit tricky. I don’t want to reduce the value of the Bible to self-help advice. Rather, what I mean is that if we don’t find ourselves thinking about the biblical stories in relation to our daily lives, or if the only time with think about the Bible at all is on Sunday, then I don’t see why we’ll keep coming to church. I mean, pretty much all we do...