Are we leading with our whole brains? Overcoming half-brained leadership by N. Graham Standish Is your leadership whole-brained or merely half-brained? Even more, is the mainline church decline really a matter of our being a bit too half-brained? Back when I was in high school there was a book that was the rage for a… Read more »
April 3, 2019
Hopeful Church
Are we leading with our whole brains? Overcoming half-brained leadership by N. Graham Standish Is your leadership whole-brained or merely half-brained? Even more, is the mainline church decline really a matter of our being a bit too half-brained? Back when I was in high school there was a book that was the rage for a… Read more »
Are We Undone by Our Expectations? by N. Graham Standish Years ago I worked with a deeply frustrated pastor. We’ll call him Wes. He couldn’t get his church to engage in almost any meaningful ministry or mission. A dinner to support a missionary? Too few signed up. Being more involved in the local food cupboard?… 
Home for Christmas *by abby mohaupt In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family line, he went up from the… 
Unexpected Surprises What genealogies reveal by Rebecca Lister Do you ever get irritated when reading genealogies in the Bible? All that “so-and-so begat so-and-so…” Most of the time, we just skip over these lists of unpronounceable names to get to the good parts that really matter. Yet, genealogies hold deep meaning for us if we… 
A turtle’s gift of grace by abby mohaupt On June 1, 2018, I left the headquarters of the PC(USA) with about 20 other people, people who were committed building a fossil free PC(USA). We didn’t get into our cars and we didn’t call a Lyft. Instead, we walked. We walked about 15 miles that day. And the… 
Pilgrims, turkey and kimchi Thanksgiving is an immigration story by Samuel Son A year ago, I was going through my parents’ photo album to put together a digital slideshow for my mother’s 70th birthday bash. That’s when I happened upon this photo. This was our first thanksgiving in America. As you can tell from… 
Cutting cost on staff? Staff members are an asset, not an expense by Richard Hong That time of year is approaching. I am not talking about Thanksgiving or Advent or Christmas Eve. I am talking about the annual reviews of staff. In my church, and in my presbytery, and in most churches I know,… 
Climate Change ‘We’ is the whole world now by Abby Mohaupt In September, the New York Times magazine released “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Solved Climate Change” by Nathaniel Rich. It’s 89 pages on climate change and what we could have done to stop it. It tackles the fossil fuel industry, environmental activism,… 
Are you a Sears or an Amazon? Churches need to adapt to a changing world by Richard Hong Christmas is coming! Even though I don’t know what I’ll be buying for the people on my list, I am pretty sure I know where I’ll be buying it: Amazon. Like many other people, I have…