Picking Beans and Counting People

Today I did two things that were the most spiritual things I have done in a while. First, after finding out that I was not needed to cook for tonight’s Community Table meal (sponsored by the Noble County Indiana United Way), I went out to the Community Garden here in Kendallville and picked beans.
That’s right, [...]

Review of Quitting Church by Julia Duin

A conversation that I have had with increasing frequency over the past year with ministerial colleagues has been about declining church attendance. It is a subject addressed from many quarters and is given many reasons why it is happens.
Because of my personal experiences in previous churches as an associate, one reason always comes to my [...]

Thoughts on Discipleship: The ‘glue’ of Ministry and Spiritual Formation and “Let’s hear it for the established church!”

Two recent blog posts, one discovered last month and one written within the past 24 or so hours, are behind today’s thoughts regarding discipleship and congregational life.
Having been in a local church all of my life and spending nearly 22 years in local church ministry as a youth minister, a youth and education minister, and [...]

Further thinking about my beliefs of life and ministry

A major theme of contemporary Christian writing and publishing has to do with one’s mission/passion. What is it? Where has/is God called/calling me to serve? What is my passion for ministry/service/witness? And, having gone through a very good professional development program from 2005-2008 called SHAPE (Sustaining Pastoral Health and Excellence created by the Lilly Endowment), [...]

Holy Week Thoughts

Being Holy Week, I am more focused and aware of spiritual issues and dynamics that perhaps at any time except Advent and Christmas.
As such, a couple of thoughts from others have prompted my thinking and writing today about the God I believe loves us and cares for us dearly and deeply and, because of [...]

‘Neighborhood Discipleship;’ Thoughts on “Land and Community;” and something for the funny bone….

Cooperative Ministry or ‘Neighborhood Discipleship’

For the past 6 or 7 years, I have worked my colleague and mentor Dr Arthur Kelly in leading what has been called Christian Education Roundtable Discussions during the North American Convention of the Church of God in Anderson, Indiana each June.

Because of my work here in Noble County and Kendallville [...]

What does Jesus see?

(Scripture Passage – Luke 23:34
Description – Communion Meditation for March 1, 2009 and the first of the Lenten Series, ‘The Body of Christ.’)

We begin our Lenten Series for this year under the theme of ‘The Body of Christ.’ I picked this theme because I believe that it ties in with the two themes that we [...]

To Be Missional is to be on mission by ‘bearing one’s cross’

(Given on Sunday, February 22, 2009. Main text was Mark 8:34-37 Third and final sermon in the second part of an initial 2009 series, ‘2 Things 2 B in 09’)

Language is an interesting thing. It changes with new words added each year to our lexicon and old ones falling out of favor.
It [...]

Rural ministry discussion moving: Building Capacity – what does it mean?: executive director search committee experience about to begin.

Rural ministry…
I have enjoyed writing and responding about Rural ministry in this blog but I have decided to move my discussion about it to my other blog, now renamed, ‘Small Town Sermons and Thoughts’ that you can visit at http://jimkane.wordpress.com

Building capacity…
Well, the Noble County Indiana Hometown Competitiveness effort is getting underway and next month [...]

Being a Rural Pastor; Hometown Competitiveness Program

Time magazine published a story about the challenges of rural pastors in their January 29, 2009 issue and it can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1874843,00.html
I wrote something in my last post about this article but had not read it until last week.
I have been a rural/small town pastor for nearly 8 and 1/2 years now and [...]