During my time at Hermitage, while I was learning the Bible and some rudimentary theology, I was also learning a bit about how the church functioned. And I quickly learned that there was a difference between how the church was intended to function and how it sometimes fell short of that. From what I’d seen … Continue reading The Road Back to Church – Church as an Incubator of Faith
Road Back to Church
The Road Back to Church – The Relentless Power of Grace
When I eventually left the Hermitage Church of Christ to move to Texas to go to preaching school, the congregation threw me a party. Along with his family, Sperry Hogue, the minister at the church, put together a video in which they went around and talked to almost everyone at the church and gave them … Continue reading The Road Back to Church – The Relentless Power of Grace
The Road Back to Church – Old Life/New Life
In 1987 I packed up my little blue Volkswagen Rabbit with my meager worldly possessions and moved to Montana. Well, I spent the summer in Washington state first. I’d been granted a small stipend through the Student Conservation Association to work on a U.S. Forest Service trail maintenance crew in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest … Continue reading The Road Back to Church – Old Life/New Life
The Road Back to Church – Growing Up Methodist
I’m told that my maternal grandfather, Joseph Archibald Walters (1885-1956), was a godly and gentle man. I never knew him, as he passed away eight years before I was born. But the stories my mother told me about him always made him sound like the kind of man I would have liked. Grandpa was a … Continue reading The Road Back to Church – Growing Up Methodist
The Road Back to Church – First Steps
Confession Time: For the last 10 years or so now I’ve been working through some issues related to my experience of church. In the process, I’ve also been working through some issues related to personality, identity, family-of-origin, and calling. All of that has kind of come to head in the last few years, during which … Continue reading The Road Back to Church – First Steps
The Jesus Society 