Out Pastors

10/09/2023

POETRY + PROSE + POLITICS: Pro-democracy, Pro-civil discourse, Pro-decency

08/24/2023

07/26/2023

We are all capable of thinking we are the “right ones” with the “right” interpretation. Humility is so very elusive…

I was seventeen in 1988, and Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ had just landed in theaters. I had just started getting into his filmography with

02/12/2023

Pondering…

12/17/2022

What do you think of this? What I have seen is a small church eventually ties to add all the dimensions of a big church… as most still want all the extras a big church provides.

Rebekah Simon-Peter believes five P’s — people, prayer, provision, partnership, and presence — are key to the sustainability of smaller churches.

11/03/2022

I want neither a blood’n’guts religion that would make Clint Eastwood, not Jesus, our hero, nor a speculative religion that would imprison the Gospel in the halls of academia, nor a noisy, feel-good religion that is a naked appeal to emotion. I long for passion, intelligence, and compassion in a Church without ostentation, gently beckoning to the world to come and enjoy the peace and unity we possess because of the Spirit in our midst. – Brennan Manning

02/07/2022

So true. A must read article for those insiders to consider how they are the privileged insider “leaders.” Also good for those on the outside of those cliques and lonely to know they are not actually alone, the majority of us are not offered hospitality.

Unfortunately many pastors and leadership do not realize this loneliness factor. They are singled out as the people most want to be included with. It becomes a similar dynamic as youth groups and high school where the popular are “in” and they circle up and everyone else “gets to” laud them rather than befriend them.

Popularity groups are a problem in all types of communities. The church should do better. Unfortunately, the western evangelical church has generally chosen teaching/preaching over relationships; Knowledge over practice; volunteer/free labor over friendships.

Can Out Pastors do better? If so how? How can this cliquish culture change to welcome the strangers and outliers? How can the church change from seeing people as “giving units” or the way to get bigger with volunteers?

I've lost count of the number of Christians who've told me they either stopped attending church or left their church to join another one because they