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Act! Be Church Now

Join this newsletter to imagine a vibrant, relevant church that is focused on serving community. Join us to chat about how to make a difference in difficult times. Join us to hear what other churches are doing. Join us to focus on mission. Join us to appreciate small church. Join us to wrestle with poverty and wealth. Join us to care for the those on the margins. Act! Be Church Now.

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Pivot Point. Act! Be Church Now

I can't stand to listen to the news these days. I read Letters from an American, and a few news articles that come to my email, but in the car I've started listening to podcasts. My work is about an hour a way, so I get to hear a wide variety of things! It was an episode of Hidden Brain that got me thinking about today's blog. (Link to Hidden Brain is below.) Pivot Point Is your church at a pivot point? This is when the world is clearly different than it was, and you choose to change your...

I will turn in the draft for my book Poverty, Wealthy, and Christian Life: A Lenten Study today, hopefully by 5 pm. It is for Upper Room Books, coming out for Lent 2026. The idea to spend Lent considering material poverty, and wealth, is not typical and yet the Lenten readings are so easily adaptable to the topic. So I've been writing for months on this idea that the poor will always be with you. And yet today, when thinking about the resistance, this entirely different take on the text came...

brown doormat with two shoes and the words Welcome the Stranger

My childhood church sponsored Vietnamese refugees coming to the United States. I remember the time, the language challenges, the cultural shocks. Also, an amazing dinner they refugees prepared for the volunteers. We moved out of the area before the work was done, but it sticks in my memory as something that Churches do. Immigrants #2 Sanctuary We looked at some easier ways to help immigrants, and we’ll look at some middling ideas. Today I want to suggest your congregation can risk it all to...

My congregation just did a furniture drive for immigrants in our area. We gathered much more stuff than we expected, and then the shelter had a flood and things couldn't be delivered! There is always something that makes a project a little harder than you expect. And yet it feels good to have begun. Immigrants #1 "When I was a stranger you welcomed me." This simple line in Matthew 25:35 sums up our Christian responsibility for immigrants in our community. Hundreds of texts throughout the...

"Going to Church" painting by William H. Johnson. Black man, woman, two kids on a cart with donkey pulling them. Flat green grass, pink sky with blue clouds. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki

I love to travel. At one time I took every opportunity to travel for consulting work. I still love that, but as I get older I have discovered that I also really love to be home. The familiarity of home is hard to describe. You know what's next. You know when you can sleep late. All the stuff to maintain life at home is always around you, eager to be on your to do list, but also easy to ignore. And you can always make your favorite cup of tea. In your favorite tea pot. Welcome Home In the...

I can't believe it's Friday! I've had a busy week. And of course my week is not over til Sunday. Today I offer an impossible idea. Can we replicate the early church today? I'm sure it's more than most of us can do, but it's valuable to imagine it. To think about it. To let it sit in our hearts. Care of Members 2 of 2 The earliest commentaries about Christians are critiques of their ridiculous practice of providing for one another. The Christians, the writers offer, are fools, and are being...

When I was young, I prioritized caring for others over caring for myself. Indeed it took me years to even know what I needed. Congregations are sometimes the same. Now is a good time to be sure that your members are getting the care that they need. Care for Members 1 of 2 The story of sharing in the book of Acts is about church members sharing what they have with each other. It is not as much mission as it is sharing. The church will later become involved in providing for the wider community,...

I spent this weekend quilting with a friend. Sometimes the only sign of hope is the people you can be with and do ordinary things. I working on series on how to deal with immigration, and care for immigrants. If your church is working on this, I'd love to hear what you are doing. From the tiny to the dramatic, what's going on? Just reply to this email to let me know. Come to the Waters with Hope Hear, everyone who thirsts; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!...

I serve two congregations that have resolved their financial issues, but still need to ask how much energy they have to be church. With the money, you either have enough, or you don't. With energy, it is hard to say. Maybe I don't want to lead, but I'm willing to follow. And yet, is there someone to lead? Sometimes church is done because we just have enough energy to keep going. Heading to Jerusalem I wrote an article for Congregations Magazine (Alban Institute) called Journey to Jerusalem....

grey map with yellow road, grey clouds and words Be Here Nowl

One thing weird about scheduling newsletters is that I'm writing on Sunday but need to act like it's a week later Monday morning. It's exactly the opposite of "being in the moment". Pastors struggle with this all the time! We plan Lent in January, and in March, before Easter even happens, I'll need a plan for May and June. But still it's important to think about being in the present--in this place and at this time. Be Here Now Small church ministry is very much a ministry of place. We are...