Thinking Blogger Award Preview Edition

I have now been nominated - not once, but twice - for the Thinking Blogger Award. I am not really sure what that means exactly, but thanks to Art and Anastasia, I will accept the honor and post something up about this soon.

Labels and Modifiers

I read this comic and had to laugh. But it did remind me of a couple of things. First of all, Fr. John Fenton wrote on his blog about “Adjectival Christians“, you know, the ones who endlessly modify their denominational/confessional/communal name in order to demonstrate some emphasis or identify with a movement. His assertion that [...]

Blogger Meet Up…Sort Of…

Mrs. LP and I had the pleasure of a Memorial Day BBQ with Derek, Mother M (who should have a blog, IMHO), and their two little ones.  While not a true meet-up, it has been long enough since we saw one another that I think it counts. Nothing says summer like bbq, cold beer, and [...]

You know what I hate…

…when I get a call at 10 pm on a holiday from a synod official asking that I call the assistant to the bishop right away on his cell. Talk about nerve wracking!
It ended up being about an opportunity to serve in the redevelopment of a parish that has quite the history. It’s sort of [...]

Latest Acquisitions

Pater Bernhardus: Martin Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux
The Rule of St. Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary

Live Blogging

For all you church geeks out there, I think I may do some live blogging from the Synod Assembly this year. I usually end up reading throughout most of it anyway, so at least this will keep me occupied.  Honestly, I think we could do this whole thing in one day, maybe a day and [...]

Baseball

I am not a big baseball fan. I love college football and college basketball, but I could live without baseball, well, at least without baseball on TV. I played baseball as a little leaguer, and later on even became a certified umpire to help pay the bills while in college. Even though I had some [...]

List

The list of congregations in transition hasn’t been updated by our synod in almost 3 months now…has nothing happened in 3 months? No wonder this process feels so slow.

Male Bonding

So I have become convinced that men can bond over some the craziest stuff. Last week at a church function, I spent over an hour talking to another guy about the joy that is wet shaving. For the uninitiated, wet shaving means going old school, using a soap cake and brush to work up a [...]

My Encounter with Jerry Falwell in 1988 (or 89, but who can remember?)

When I was in 8th grade, my dad had a powerful re-conversion experience to fundamentalist Christianity. What accompanied this was the feeling that he might have a call to preach. Since he had no college education, he enrolled in Liberty Home Bible Institute, an outreach program of  Liberty University, the school Falwell founded in Lynchburg, [...]