Lent is a time of self-denial and sacrifice. These aren’t terribly popular words in our culture. They seem to many today part of a dark and dingy past when religious superstition dominated all. But what of the rampant self-indulgence that governs today? Is the ability to eat, drink, spend, or have sex whenever you want to – which seem to be the goals lifted by most television programs I see – really an expression of freedom, let alone dignity or meaning? What is strength is you cannot govern yourself? What is wealth if you go to bed each night fearful that you do not have enough? What is power if you are constantly driven by the need...

Amy Cuddy studies body language. In particular, she studies how our body language doesn’t just display our reactions and emotions but actually shapes them. That’s right – how you sit shapes how you feel – including how much stress you’re feeling – and how you stand not only influences how others perceive you but also how you perceive yourself. The message of her TED Talk is that simple…and that powerful. And it has the capacity to shape how we interview, negotiate, communicate, and preach and teach. I won’t say much more, because she is such a fine teacher and her research is so interesting that I want you to experience it...

The following video is a follow-up to the one I posted last Friday on Forgiveness and Happiness. What I found interesting – and initially almost kept me from posting it – is that it’s barely about forgiveness. In the video, Justin, the host of Soul Pancake’s Science of Happiness series, asks one of the participants if he wants to take the exercise from the experiment – delivering to a mirror the words of forgiveness he’d prepared for his sister – one step further by actually calling her. As he does, you’ll realize it’s not so much that she’s done something wrong, but that he feels bad for being far away and regrets...

You know the stats. The mainline church in North America has lost significant numbers of members over the last several decades. The ELCA alone suffered a 20% loss over the last fifteen years. This isn’t news. What is news – or what should be – is how little we’re doing about it. Oh, don’t get me wrong – we have all kinds of programs and meetings and studies and initiatives. Yet when it comes down to calling into question basic assumptions about worship and preaching and congregational life and leadership, we continue to do what we’ve been doing for much of the last century. Last night, after making a presentation on some of the...