The View From Here

Pop-Up Wedding

I have a recurring dream where I show up for a wedding, only to discover that I was supposed to be officiating the ceremony. The problem is, I haven’t prepared, not a word of it, and the rest of the dream is me scrambling unsuccessfully to scrape something together at the last minute… - - - - - One of the many things I’ve learned in my work with First Nations communities in western Canada is that even though the content of our personal development experience is the same every month, each new group of participants comes together to create a unique experience for everyone involved. Last week was no exception—especially Thursday night. 5:00pm Our afternoon session had just wrapped up when I overheard someone say that a couple of the participants wanted to get married. Well that’s a first. John and Alexia had been engaged for some time, and earlier in the day, Alexia mentioned to a friend that she wanted to have her wedding right there at Ness Lake. “But ...

Fear and Trembling

I first registered an account with Blogger back in 2011 when someone suggested I start a blog after visiting our church one Sunday morning. The fact that nine years have passed by with nothing to show for it speaks pretty clearly as to how comfortable I am with the idea as a whole. So why now? In 2018, the church where I serve as pastor went through an incredibly trying season. When a leader and beloved member of our congregation told me he was gay and that he was preparing to ‘come out’ publicly, I desperately wanted to know how other pastors had responded to a challenge like this without destroying their church in the process. I grasped for anything that could help me get through what I knew would be a daunting leadership experience with significant implications for our church’s future. While I was able to find a number of books written from different sides of this hot-button issue, the primary commentaries seemed to come from those who were not actually leading local congregat...

In Anxious Times

Doug Kelly is the Senior Pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington. I can’t remember how I landed on his church’s website to begin with, but what I found there was hopeful and it has been helping me think about some healthy steps our church can take to keep things moving in a healthy direction. Bethany’s leadership team first started talking about LGBTQ issues in their church two and a half years ago. Those early conversations led to wider congregational involvement over an extended period of time and then eventually to a decision to remove a long-standing Holiness and Leadership Statement . While Bethany stopped short of affirming same-sex relationships, their new statement did open a door for those in homosexual relationships to be involved in leadership roles in the church. (Note: This post is part of an ongoing series called The View From Here . Please follow this link and start reading at the oldest post, Fear and Trembling .) Early...

A Good Honest Shuffle

Search This Blog