When I was a kid, people retired at 65. Their companies walked them to the door, with some parting gift. And then, so the myth goes, they went golfing. Except for my maternal grandfather, who kept working on the small farm where he’d lived after immigrating from Sweden when he was eleven. He kept working […]

God. I think we are all like Paul some days. What we want to do, we don’t do. What we don’t want to do, we do. I know, God, that Paul wasn’t talking about fitness goals or writing goals. He wasn’t talking about mid-year resolutions. He was talking about doing good and doing bad. “I […]

As I’m working on this course, I want to make helpful assignments. One is to think about praying. And I realized that this may be helpful to readers of 300 words, too. +++ I am an extemporaneous pray-er. I can simply, together with a family, start talking to God. And laugh in the middle as […]

Rich Dixon’s asking important questions: +++ After meeting with a group of pastors at Carbondale’s Heartland Christian Center, our host told us we’d meet later with the Carbondale High School soccer team. I’ll admit…I was a bit intimidated when I discovered both boys’ and girls’ teams were present, but I’d been invited to give a […]

When I started building my course structure for the pastoral care course the other day, I started thinking about problems. What are the problem situations where people “need” a pastor? I put need in quotes. Many people have no ongoing felt need of a pastor. Sometimes they feel a need for a chaplain, thought that’s […]