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… make lemonade!
In the last post, I described a children’s sermon in which I made lemonade for the congregation. But I didn’t include the recipe! That’s because I never did write down the proportions that I used....
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The Six Essentials for Preaching to Children – If you must do children’s...
A few entries back, I mentioned that there were certain parameters within which a children’s sermon might operate – and outside of which it might do real harm. These are the essentials of a...
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Laughing until it hurts
Among the many responses I received to my Six Essentials for Preaching to Children were several requests for me to discuss specific strategies for dealing with congregational laughter. What do we do...
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Father-less Day?
Last year was the first Father’s Day since my own Dad died. In the United Methodist Church, Annual Conferences are typically held around Father’s Day – including the Virginia Annual Conference, in...
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Why are they laughing?
For those who have been waiting for the follow-up to my post on the child-adult dynamic during children’s sermons, particularly the congregational laughter conundrum, my article “Why are they...
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Saturday night spike
I love reading the search terms that lead people to my blog. Defying the one-way dynamic of the writer-reader relationship, search terms give me insight into the people who find my blog. Yesterday I...
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My favorite theologian
This week, my friend Kara invited me to join the Facebook event “Show Them a Theologian,” by changing my profile picture to a picture of a theologian. The idea is to exhibit the great diversity of...
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“The Talk”
Update / Correction: I have changed this post slightly from when I first posted it in 2013. I have replaced previous instances of the word “breed/breeding” with “mate/mating,” which is more accurate....
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A dishonor and a privilege
I was in the waiting room of an urgent care this morning when I saw him. He was adorable. Vacillating between heartmeltingly thoughtful and thoughtlessly distracted and studiously disobedient, like any...
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Aspiration
Today, on Twitter, Whitney Simpson quoted St. Augustine: “You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.” Glancing through my feed, I thought to myself, “I have always believed that! I didn’t know...
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Why are they laughing?
For those who have been waiting for the follow-up to my post on the child-adult dynamic during children’s sermons, particularly the congregational laughter conundrum, my article “Why are they...
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The Writing Parent
Of all of the parenting decisions my mother made when I was in middle school, perhaps the one I am most grateful for is how she chose to write about me. My mother spent several years as a professional...
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