Can we talk about Ferguson? And now Staten Island? I won’t be surprised if you’re not sure you want to keep reading. It’s hard stuff – unpleasant and, perhaps more to the point, divisive. I myself have friends on all sides of the spectrum of attitudes about the grand jury decisions, about the protests that followed, and about the state of race relations in our country. Which is why so many of us would be just as happy to avoid talking about this in general and most certainly at church. But there’s more than one way to talk about an issue, and I’d like to invite us to think about another tact. Might we, for instance, talk with...

One more note on the TED Talk from yesterday about Nancy Frates’ story about the ALS Ice-Bucket Challenge. A few weeks ago I defined leadership as using the gifts God has given you to bring out the gifts of others in order to accomplish great things in and for the world God loves so much. And I stand by that. 🙂 But as I listened to Nancy Frates, I was also struck by the determination of her son to seize the opportunity in his ALS to make a difference. We don’t often think of tragedy as presenting opportunity of course, but Pete Frates did. In fact, he refused not to see an opportunity. And I think that’s part of being...