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Doubt is a familiar visitor for both ministers and congregational leaders. We doubt our faith. Even more, we doubt ourselves, as leaders, worrying that our faith is not strong enough, that we do not understand enough, that we are not expert enough to fulfill our...

In his 1974 essay “Vocation as Grace,” Baptist minister and writer Will D. Campbell (1924-2013) recounted a conversation he had once had with a high-wire performer for a traveling circus: I asked him why he chose that particular way of making a living. The first few...

Space has an important relationship to faith, but “space” does not automatically equal “church building.” I have served six congregations over 30+ years in ministry. Each was an established church which had moved into its current building as early as 1892 or as recently as...

In a recent interview, Bruce Springsteen—45 years a rock icon, with those four-hour live concerts and last year’s sold out Broadway show—was asked about his family life.   Springsteen admitted that for years the idea of a home filled him “with distrust and a bucketload of grief.” He credits...

  Every church board of whatever size will face a moment when the stunning complexity and reality of the needs they feel called to meet will make their efforts—even their very solid, organized, well-resourced, well-led efforts—seem inadequate.  What to do then?   The temptation is to try to “scale...