In a sea of many who believe themselves the few with “ears to hear,” do we really have the chutzpah to respond to our calling? One day, still too young to walk, my parents carried me through a parking lot. Nearby, a stranger remotely locked his car. This man “beeped” his car with his keychain […]
I heard the car drive up our gravel driveway. Mia, my wife Becky as she is known by our grandchildren, and Elsa, my darling two-year old granddaughter, were home. I had just finished a section in a book on sexual abuse that is a retrospective of my twenty-five years since writing The Wounded Heart. What […]
“Advent is actually a dramatically simple question: what do you do with the claim that Jesus is God With Us? It was God With Us, not the God Up There Somewhere who answers our prayers by lifting us out of our lives, but the God Who Comes To Us in the midst of them. However […]
Advent season carries with it for me a delicious sadness. It is the portion of the church calendar made for those who are waiting and trying to be patient about it, but there is a slight panic setting in. It is a season for me—a daughter, a sister, and an aunt—where I bake pies for […]
Photo © 2014 Caleb Dodson. Several years ago, I stumbled upon simple but profound text, Listening to the Heartbeat of God. It was a book that resonated deep within my own soul as it eloquently reminded me of the heart of God beating in each and everyone of us – inviting me to look and […]
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the […]
November 15th marked the beginning of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology’s end of year campaign, God With Us. During this season of Advent, we are moved to gratitude as we acknowledge the impact of our generous donors and committed students. We believe God is with us in this work, and it is in […]
When I try to speak about this last year, my third in The Seattle School’s MDiv program, it starts out like a joke: “A Lutheran, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Quaker, a Mennonite, a Church of Christ…er, a Reformed Protestant, a Baptist, a Disciple of Christ, and a Free Churcher walk into a bar.” Except […]
Art brings me to the very edge of myself. Creating art tips me over completely. This poem was born while at the very end of my artistic crisis. I had gone through a dry spell for over a year, no paint, no pen to paper, no movement, nothing. After attending The Seattle School’s Artist Residency, […]
This spring, I was invited to be the Associate Professor of Theology & Culture here at The Seattle School. I am excited and humbled to be called faculty. This new position comes after years of transition and disorientation. Five years ago, I left the place I loved: New Horizons Ministries. I had served marginalized young […]
Dwight J. Friesen (Associate Professor of Practical Theology), Tim Soerens, and Paul Sparks, Leadership in the New Parish Certificate program facilitators and authors of the popular book, The New Parish, recently returned from a multi-city book tour along the West Coast of the United States and into Canada. During the tour, the authors met with […]
After finally accepting the fact that my sex does not disqualify me from leadership, finally accepting that I (might kind of sort of) have a gift for pastoring, and finally accepting that the next step was to earn an MDiv, the question became: where would I go? Staying in the area I lived in wasn’t […]