Over the past few weeks, we have explored what it means to be relentlessly relational, not just as a tagline for our work, but as a lens for thinking about ministry more broadly. What does it actually look like to prioritize relationships in a culture...
Did you see this snafu at a recent Arizona college graduation? An AI system that was supposed to read graduates' names at a ceremony malfunctioned, skipping and mispronouncing names, robbing many students of their once-in-a-lifetime moment of recognition. This was predictably followed by boos and...
Recently, I had the opportunity to join one of our TMC cohorts on a visit to Greece where we explored the Holy Spirit’s work through Paul and his colleagues in Macedonia with the Jews in diaspora. As I looked back at the hundreds of photographs I...
According to a recent story, Pope Leo XIV ran into a wall of sorts when he tried to change his contact information with his bank in Chicago. About two months after the Chicago-born cardinal became Pope Leo XIV and moved to Vatican City, he put in...
Ministry leaders of all contexts, traditions, and roles know on some level the experience of trying to produce “fruit” and only finding frustration. I don’t deal well with frustration - just ask my sister about our marathon Monopoly sessions growing up. Frustration, of course, is an...
In a season when ministry can feel like it demands constant creativity, urgency, and reinvention, these recent reflections offer something steadier, and ultimately more sustaining. Together, they point us back to the core of our calling: to trust what is already true, to recognize God at...
In this conversation, Amy Valdez Barker speaks with Dr. William Watley, renowned AME pastor, preacher, author, and senior advisor to TMC cohorts focusing on preaching, and Rev. Joe Clifford, pastor of Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, and a longtime facilitator with TMC. Together they...
In this recent TMC podcast conversation, Tom Long and Cynthia Hale join host Mark Ramsey to discuss where they still see joy and hope in preaching, the pressures and risks of speaking truthfully in a toxic public climate, and why authentic, Spirit-led boldness and deep...
You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary. – Frederick Buechner Almost every church building has a room like this. It might differ in style and furnishing. It might be called a parlor, a lounge, a meeting space. It might be named for some long-forgotten saint of...