Painfully Hopeful

Vacations and Behavioral Change

I love going on vacations for many reasons, but my favorite might be the chance to track the changing behavior-patterns of vacationers over time. Yes, I’m a geek (and probably a nerd) – I can’t help it. The first “vacation” I ever took with my wife was our honeymoon to Williamsburg, VA. As we prepared…

The “meh” experience of sermon-writing on my iPad

Today I took the plunge and wrote my sermon on my iPad. It’s a “doable” experience, but not one I’d want to repeat over and over again just yet. Let me share my two biggest reasons why I don’t think it’s quite “there” yet. There aren’t any windows. I know, on the iPad that’s a…

Leaving the MacBook at home for fun and prophet

We drove out to pick up our daughter from my wife’s folks after worship on Sunday. As my day off is Monday we stayed over-night and hit HersheyPark on Monday. This isn’t unusual, it’s a ritual we do year after year. What was unusual, however, is that this time I left my MacBook at home….

Spirituality 101

The most memorable spiritual lesson I learned in college was actually taught to me by my astronomy professor, Dr. Bradstreet. For years the astronomy students at Eastern practiced the art of lugging telescopes into place, manually calibrating them, and learning how to keep a stellar object in the field of view so it could be…

A funny thing happened on the way to the offering

I love technology, and implementing technology wisely in worship. That being said, one of the points I always raise with pastors and lay-people who are interested in integrating technology into worship (usually through digital projection) is that it will fail – and they needed to be prepared for the contingency. Well, this past Sunday we…

Living Forward

This morning I lead chapel at Riverview Estates. It’s a (mostly) Baptist retirement facility down by the Delaware River. There is a special connection between Riverview and Central Baptist, many of our members have lived, worked, or volunteered down there over the years (some have even done all three) so we feel that Riverview really…