Today is Ascension Day. Truth be told, even though I did a podcast about preaching on Ascension Day two weeks ago, I almost forgot that. In fact, if I hadn’t called my parents today and heard them mention the Ascension Day retired pastors’ luncheon they’d gone to earlier, I’m pretty sure I would have forgotten about it all together. Ascension Day is one of the more overlooked holidays of the Christian calendar. It doesn’t fall on a Sunday; there are no disciplines of preparation ahead of time or rites of celebration on the day to usher it in. Fewer and fewer churches remember it, let alone hold Thursday services. It’s no...

…Then maybe it’s time to start Rethinking Evangelism! There’s an old joke that, while it names Lutherans, I suspect could be applied to most “mainline” Protestants and Roman Catholics: Q: What do you get when you cross a Lutheran with a Seventh Day Adventist?   A: Someone who goes door-to-door but has no idea what to say! There’s something both funny and just a little bit painful about that joke precisely because it’s true. Lutherans…and Presbyterians and Methodists and Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, as well…often are incredibly uncomfortable when we talk about evangelism largely because we assume that evangelism...

I realize that after my gaffe regarding the date of the start of the Conclave, I’m not exactly the expert on all things papal. (My apologies again to readers, and especially my Roman Catholic friends!) Nevertheless, now that the Conclave has begun, I thought I’d share one or two of the more interesting tidbits that I’ve come across, particularly with regard to the new name the next Pope will choose. I’ll start with a piece from Father James Martin, SJ, who is one of the leading authorities on American Catholicism. In a tongue-in-cheek piece, Father Martin offers the Cardinals twelve (pretty) good reasons he should be the next...

Cardinals from around the world go into conclave today in Rome to choose the next Pope, which means that starting this evening [sometime soon] we will receive reports about whether black smoke or white issues from the chimney of the Vatican. Curious about how all that works? Me too! So I tuned in for a typically informative and fast-paced four-minute guide from the good folks at Busted Halo to find out how the Roman Catholic church chooses it’s spiritual leader. I found it quite helpful and help you do too. Quick note: Misreading a news report late last week, I got the start of the papal conclave totally wrong, as several helpful...