I’ve coined “the Dover Principle” by way of our recent visit to my in-laws in Boston. The Dover Principle states this: a three-day limit to visits with extended family is good for everybody.  Visits exceeding three days overstay the welcome and invite unnecessary drama.  (Besides, don’t good things happen on Day 3? You know, “third…

We writers try to find ways to remind ourselves that what we are writing really matters.  One way I do this is to remember who I’m writing for. Some of you know by now that Grace Sticks is a book for restless souls- all of us religious misfits disillusioned by the church with one foot in…

After last night’s election victory by Barack Obama, the survey results regarding Christian voting trends are almost in- this according to one of today’s headlines from Religion Today, citing as its source the The Christian Post. Apparently, the post-election survey of Christians, including evangelicals and voters across denominational lines, will be released later today by…

Author Jana Riess, whose book, Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray and Still Loving My Neighbor, is on my list of must-reads- you can find her regularly blogging for the Religion News Service at “Flunking Sainthood”- recently posted a review of the book, Dinner with Muhammad, by Marilyn Hickey. Tellingly,…

Reading the book, The Beautiful Wife, by author and speaker Sandy Ralya, whose agenda to save so-called “biblical marriage” seems a bit dubious from the start, feels like the times I’ve been asked to buckle up during a spate of turbulence on airplanes and find myself absent-mindedly checking for the barf bag in the seat in…

The other day a pastor friend asked if I’d like to help her preach on Stewardship Sunday.  A kind but dubious invitation which I agreed to with a level of trepidation.  That’s because anyone who has been around the church on Stewardship Sunday knows it’s that day on the church calendar when we pastors prostrate…

If you could think of one example in your life of how God was real to you, what would it be? Co-founder and co-pastor of Kairos Church Thomas Daniel begins last week’s sermon with this question.  What follows is an effective distillation of the nature of postmodern evangelism, taking the witness of the blind man…

If you read yesterday’s post, “Narcissistic Evangelism,” then this morning’s reflection from the gem of a devotional book, Celtic Daily Prayer, may seem poignantly relevant.  Member of the Northumbria Community Aidan Clarke writes: “What I believe about Jesus could not be contained in a thousand books.  I believe in Jesus more than I believe in the…

Last week someone inquired about the book I’m writing. “It’s a book for all those who would describe themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious,'” I had replied.  (The “spiritual but not religious” are all the folks who check “none” next to “religious affiliation” on questionnaires.) “My book is an effort to introduce them to God’s…

What few of her parishioners know, or are only now beginning to discover, is that on one Sunday morning eight years ago Rev. Dr. Amy Richter of St. Anne’s Parish in Annapolis, Maryland took second in the Wisconsin State Fair’s physique competition.  This was no small feat.  In addition to training for the event, Richter…

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