Here and Now

  A co-worker said something to me this week that really stuck with me.  It seemed so simple and yet so amazingly profound.  We are attempting to make some wholesale changes to the way we do things at my day job in an effort to improve not only efficiency and profit, but to improve the experience of working there for everyone.  And there is a lot of discussion about how to do that.  And it becomes very easy to get distracted from the actual doing when there is so much talk about how it should be done.  So, eager to start moving towards improvement, my friend said: "Nothing will change if you don't actually change something." - Thomas Ney  Brilliant!   You see, when we want change, we tend to want it a lot more in theory than we do in actual practice.  Whether it is at work, at home, in a relationship, or in the church.  And the same holds true for our Spiritual lives.  We all want to change for the better - to be closer to God, to be more obedient, and t

Howdy, y'all!  I thought I'd share some of the things I read this week that I found particularly interesting.  (And, in the interest of full disclosure: I have a few posts started but not finished, and I was REALLY pressed for time this week).  Enjoy! Check out this post about how to handle the atheist-created "reason vs. faith" myth here Next, check out some teaching from John Wesley on seeking God here Then, check out a GREAT defense of complementarianism (the belief that God made men and women to fill different but complementary roles) here Then check out this post in favor of pastors staying for a long time in their pastorate  here  (which is a good companion to my post from last week that you can find here  ) Finally, read a great post that a great friend sent to me about making friends who are different than me here (thanks, Leyla!!)

I found out this week that the Senior Pastor of the largest church in Nutley has been reassigned to another church.  I am sorry to see him go.  I have always appreciated this particular man's preaching and heart for God.  I am blessed to pastor here in Nutley.  Though there are many churches in town of all different denominations, we do share some unity by all of the pastors working together in a "Clergy Fellowship" to keep a Christian presence in the town through combined services, prayers, and events throughout the year.    So I started thinking about the departure of this man of God, and I realized something: of the ten congregations that have been represented in the fellowship since I have been involved, five of them have had changes of pastor, one more than once, and one of the churches has closed.  I have been in the fellowship for less than four years.  Am I the only one who sees a problem?   Now, I am not saying that the changes these churches have gon