Twice this summer, I have been dis-invited from speaking engagements. The first was one I had been booked to do for over two years. It was at a small church in Maryland who told me they wanted to reach their community with a seminar on Christian Evidences. I knew that it would be hard for [...]
For the second year in a row, I had the honor of giving the keynote speech at the Global Day of Prayer for Law Enforcement Officers. It is connected with the general Global Day of Prayer, always held on Pentecost. After last year, I should have been better prepared for how out of place I [...]
For those who are interested, chapter six was just posted at www.thenovelproject.patrickmead.net More should be posted in the next week, too!
[full disclosure: so much of this comes from Frank Spina's 2005 book The Faith of the Outsider: Exclusion and Inclusion in the Biblical Story and from Dan Clendenin's Journey With Jesus website that it might constitute stolen goods. I highly recommend both of those men's works. They help us confront the scripture in new, powerful [...]
It is important to me that my discussions of problems and issues among my religious tribe aren’t misconstrued as a long, sustained whine; or, worse, as an attack. I’m a grown man and I have the freedom to move around and do what I want, but I remain in my tribe and do so happily. [...]
The Division Helpers had been busy in our religious tribe. Everything was codified under a vast system of syllogisms, tradition, inferences, and ordinances all backed up and enforced by threats of (at best) disapproval or (at worst) disfellowship. The number of rules was staggering. There was no public swimming (called “mixed bathing” by my tribe, [...]
[NOTE: for those waiting for chapter six in the new novel...I'm working on it. However, it seems that I have a major disagreement with a couple of the characters. They want to go a direction I was not prepared for and we are trying to work it out. I am in Tabernacle, NJ with one [...]
A letter! We got a letter from our son! After nearly two weeks away from us, this was our first real communication. Yes, there was that scripted 20 second phone call made when he arrived at Parris Island at 2:19AM and the postcard sized communique with blanks on it for him to fill in his [...]
"Jesus loves the little children; all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." "This is how we know what love is; Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives [...]
In two earlier posts we discussed how, in the Lord’s Supper, it isn’t the elements that matter, far less their containers; it is the story, the celebration, and the heart. In the first centuries, the meal was a real meal — a shared meal that coincided with a sharing of goods and resources. Since most [...]