Minister, writer, speaker, something else. Authored Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us & What We Can Do About It. Hosts The Fairly Spiritual Show He/Him
I think I've squeezed all the juice out of this lemon. Going to take a break for awhile and finish some projects. I'll drop back in when I have something substantial to share or say...or if the world is ending. I'll check DMs from time to time if any of my friends need to talk.
Recently I made it clear I support & affirm loving same-sex marriage & relationships. As a result my license & ordination are being revoked & today we shut down our church after 24 years. God is good & we are thankful for your prayers & support as we enter this new season. 1/2
Here is the theological paper I presented to let people know my heart. Not trying to convince anyone, just trying to be me. Much love to each of you. 2/2
Hey you with the soft heart. We need you. The world is full of hard hearted people. They crush precious things under their feet, they wound tender souls with their words. We need your tender heart to reveal the fullness of God. Do not despair, you’re not alone, and not forgotten.
I’m not going to be able to respond to the overwhelming number of responses. Thank you for your love and kindness as I tried to share with my friends what is currently happening in my life. I ask that you would be loving to each other, even if you disagree. Peace.
You can do really good ministry and not grow a church. You can write a really good book and not sell a lot of copies. Everything we do must have value in the doing, not in the monetizing or crowds. Some crowds are great, some are not. It's all a bit more complicated.
Well, it is official! Just received this message from my school: "Congratulations, Dr. Doug Bursch, on successfully completing the oral defense for your Doctor of Ministry degree from Portland Seminary of George Fox University!"
Give me your petty family dispute and I will decide who is right. Only rule is the dispute must be real and real petty and dumb. All decisions are final. Void in some regions of Florida. I’ll do this for about 5 min to an hour.
I don't understand the conference pattern of having pastors of large churches consistently speak to rooms full of people who pastor smaller churches. There is such a condescending premise in this well worn practice.
I wish we had a battery indicator for our bodies similar to our phones. I’d love for people to see I’m at 2% and desperately trying to get to my car or home to recharge.
I’m all for mental health advocacy but we often don’t talk about how difficult it is to find and pay for good mental health care. Good counseling and psychiatric care are often far more dependent upon privilege than we are willing to address.
Interesting Fact: God's end of the world timeline is not based solely on the United States of America. Rumor has it that he also considers other countries, even Canada. # ShockingRevelation
@RevDaniel
Great thread. I love we get to see a three dimensional real person through your posts. I get tired of people who seem to be presenting some sort of ideological brand of themselves. I see it as a gift that you would share a part of your life with us. I'm better for it. thanks.
I made fun of Gilmore Girls for years and then one day I watched an episode, then another episode, then every single episode until there were no more Gilmore Girls to watch. I wonder what else I’m currently ridiculing that I might actually love.
Regardless of our views on abortion, realize that there are women in our churches who've had an abortion. When we call people baby killers, we're often speaking of the people we pray & fellowship with. How we talk about the people we love says a lot about our love. Grace to you.
Some People: "Our President has been placed in office by the providence of God's hand and should be respected."
Same People: "Our Governor is a tyrant overthrowing the sovereign will of the people and should be thrown out of office."
I don't think I'm going to be able to fully recover from how selfishly I've seen some Christians respond to Covid-19 restrictions. Feels like a death cult.
@terry_michaels
The person who is hot has the final say. Cold people can put on a sweater, while warm people should not be forced to walk around the house naked.
I love the Bible. I trust the Word more than any person. God has opened my eyes and ears countless times when I meditated upon the Scripture as sacred text. The Word is God’s breath to me, I will fully, unashamedly breathe it in.
I had a pastor once warn me against sharing my weaknesses. He told me it would be used against me. He was right, but I think I'd rather have some people reject an honest version of me, then a mythology I cannot maintain that benefits no one.
I'm pro
@BethMooreLPM
. However, to me that's like being pro a ray of sunshine or pro-Christ-like people. Anyway, just thought I'd say it. I'm also pro-puppies but I'll save that controversial take for another tweet.
The first Psalm warns me not to sit in the seat of scoffers. A word search of "scoffer" shows me that scoffers are not teachable, they try to harm you if corrected, they rage when confronted, they are led by their own passions & they are reluctant to follow the Spirit's leading.
When I was a child, the last stop on my mom's shopping spree was the fabric store, the most boring place on the planet. I learned the concept of endless time at the fabric store. There weren't even clothing racks to hide in. The suffering had no redemptive purpose but this tweet.
Interesting fact: Most bible degrees do not include extensive training in constitutional law. So...pastors are probably not the best resource for advice on the constitution.
Pastoring will chew up and spit out people who are emotionally sensitive. Consequently, the pastors who remain are sometimes not that sensitive. Don't really know how to fix this but it is a real issue....in my opinion.
It's ok to mourn the weight of it all. Your friends who have been so radicalized you don't know them anymore & all the Christians who traded their lifelong witness for worthless propaganda. And the vile spirit of ridicule & anger that permeates their witness. It's ok to mourn.
Well…this happened Saturday. My first child, Kysa got married to a wonderful man named Jon and I had the privilege of officiating and sharing this dance. I’ll have more pictures some other time, but for now I just want to say I am so happy.
My 13-year-old son Sam, just made us all go outside, look at creation, look at our house and cars, thank God for what he has given us, take a deep breath and embrace each other. He embodies hope for me on a daily basis.
Sometimes we have to recognize that people with terrible theology have great faith and people with great theology have terrible faith. It is all a bit more complicated than how well we can carefully articulate the mysteries of God. God is not limited by our intellect.
If you have relationship with someone who refuses to apologize or admit to his/her own mistakes, he/she will eventually reject you for not being enough. When people cannot look at their own side of the equation, they will repeatedly blame and reject anyone but themselves.
God did not give you revelation so that you could hurt people on twitter. Wisdom without love is foolishness! The more we learn, the more we must be willing to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord. Otherwise we are dangerous to ourselves and others.
Bad news everybody. I just found out that if you read the Greek correctly, the mark of the beast is Wordle. Sorry
@BethMooreLPM
and
@SarahBessey
but the truth is the truth.
If Twitter collapses, I want everyone to know that I am proud of the fact that I never succumbed to all your Enneagram pressure. I guess we will never know my number.
If you're like me, you've probably experienced some alienation the last few years, culminating in how people are responding to this pandemic. I honestly feel like I have almost nothing in common with the discernment of some of my fellow Christians. Hard not to feel hopeless. 1/
So my mom wouldn't buy sugar cereals. We usual had something boring like Cheerios. I solved this problem by taking the sugar scoop from the sugar jar and layering about a 1/4 inch of sugar on every Cheerio. Anyone else have this kind of childhood?
I know there isn't much sympathy for this topic, but it is a real issue. Many of us in Generation X found that the generation before us would not give up control of their leadership positions. When they finally gave up control they gave their positions to Millennials.
#GenSkip
Fathers! I’m begging you. Please tell your kids that you love them. Look them in the eyes and say the words, “I love you.” Don’t assume they know. Do it, repeatedly and constantly throughout their lives.
Beware of men who have a Hollywood mythologized understanding of masculinity that makes Jesus and Christian manhood look more like Gladiator than Jesus washing his disciples feet and becoming the servant of all. This is often an overcompensation for a confused childhood.
My personal opinion is we need less resources on church growth and more emphasis on Christian character. Do a word study of “gentle” and “gentleness” today and recognize where the real work in our leadership must be done.
It has been a tough emotional day. I am pretty worn out with what feels like a tremendous amount of rejection as a pastor and a profound sense of alienation that impacts my ability to get help and truly trust people. My feelings are not reality but today has been a challenge.
I can pretend if you want me to pretend or I can be honest. Honestly, ministry has been more difficult during this season of my life than any other. I have support in our church but many people disappeared during Covid and are not coming back. Still trying to discern next steps.
I personally believe that if a majority of your denomination's pastors are leading churches under 200 people, then the majority of your leadership should be pastors of churches of 200 people or less. Letting the anomalies or exceptions run the show, says much about our values.
As a pastor I’ve seen this sad truth play out too often. Someone can be well respected by 99.9 percent of the people they know and still do monstrously evil things to one person. Evil is not balanced out by a crowd of people willing to praise you.
Remember, the wisemen were not at the manger scene when Christ was born. They were still traveling in the far distance. With this in mind, make sure you place them down the hall or in another room, far away from the rest of your Navity set.
I was listening to the broadcast of my radio show and I realize I said at the end of the show “May the Spirit bless every part of your continence.” Meant to say “countenance.” Oh well, something got blessed.
Yesterday I officiated the funeral of my cousin George. He was 45 when he died. The brakes on his semi failed & he died trying to stop his runaway truck. Life's short, don't wait for tomorrow to reconcile. Spend time with your loved ones when you can. Say what needs said.
Unfortunately, I think we are going to see a large exodus of pastors from the church as well as many pastors moving to new churches as result of this pandemic. It’ll be a last straw for many who’ve endured traumatic working conditions.
I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on general forgiveness. In the last couple years, I’ve been greatly hurt by some people‘s response to Covid. I want to know how to forgive them in a way that’s redemptive. Please give me advice.
As a pastor, not a week goes by where I don't mourn the absence of people who were once present in the life of my congregation. That continual mourning of people who left the church I serve is something I never really know how to process, except with a slow and steady heart-ache.
Been thinking about my daughters all day. I feel the American church has failed them in so many ways. I hate that as a pastor I represent that failure. To my sisters in the faith, please forgive me when I have devalued your voice. We have so much farther to go.
What a wicked thing to tell a young man that his tears speak against his masculinity, to make him doubt his authentic desire to express his emotional core. What a wicked task to try to limit the full expression of a man to defend your disconnected soul.
My mom preaches at our church on Mother’s Day. It’s not a topic about mothers. She just preaches and lives are changed every year. Some of my earliest memories are hearing the voice of God through my mother.
@KSPrior
I've got a crazy analogy that might explain this. It is like we have a plank in our eye, but we are more concerned with removing the speck in other people's eyes.
Some people are trying to survive, to hold onto their marriage, to keep their kid from overdosing, to pay enough to have a place to live. Sometimes luxury allows us to pursue righteous crusades. Be gracious when others don’t join us. Their crusade might simply be not giving up.
I just experienced a miracle. My wife and I prayed that God would supply our tech needs for next ministry steps and the next day someone in our church gifted us with the exact computer we needed. I am overwhelmed with God’s grace.
I've been thinking about writing The World's Worst Devotional. It'll be for everyone who consistently fails at doing a daily devotional. If
@BethMooreLPM
does the forward, I'll totally do it!
@HeatherTDay
Thank you for sharing this. The concept of people answering their own questions is why even calls for dialogue can be such a mixed bag. The dilemma arises, do they want their question answered or is their question a passive/aggressive way to prove a point.
I would avoid any church run by an arrogant pastor. Arrogant pastors erroneously defend their arrogance as an expression of authority or strong leadership. The fruit of such churches is usually abusive. Arrogance is an anti-Christ spirit that resists the fruit of the Spirit.
So my 6’3” frame weighed 272 in February. I’ve lost 30 pounds and am down to 242. Feeling good in the struggle. The goal is longevity with wife and family.
It’s my Birthday. I’m 49. I’m thankful today for the provision, mercies, love and presence of God. I dedicate myself to Him. I am also thankful for those of you on this platform who have loved and blessed me. What a privilege to know you.
There was that nursery worker who really loved you, who held you and made you laugh while the pastor preached too long and your parents slowly came to get you after service. She is worthy of honor.
I recently saw a negative tweet about public schools & it allowed me to unfollow some people. I've teachers in our church barely hanging on as they deal with students and parents acting out in all sorts of harmful ways. I want to thank all the educators fighting the good fight!