Marc’s Blog

Questions to Wrestle With

The other day,  I was talking with some leaders about basic discipleship stuff, and one of them caught me.  They said, “You are talking like we are going to be able to do all the things we used to be able to do before the pandemic.”  They weren’t being mean. […]

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This Advent Season

I’m going to start this blog post with a couple of reminders. I hope that’s okay. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility, regard others as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 

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I Went to Church

The other day, I went to church, in a building with other people church.   How was it you ask? Well, thanks for asking. It was different and I don’t mean good or bad different, just different. How could it not be? We were all appropriately distanced and had our masks

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Like You

Like you, I’m tired of this pandemic and want it to end. I’m tired of hearing the slogans “a new normal” or “a new reality.” I understand why people use these slogans because, like me, no one knows what to do next. No one has been able to give us

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The Act of Noticing

A couple years ago, I walked downstairs into my basement to take a shower. On the last step, before I reached for the light switch, I stepped into an inch of water. The water heater had blown a hole and flooded the basement. After shutting off the water, draining what

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Be a Big Influence

Earlier this year, I had an unusual experience that has caused me to do quite a bit of thinking and reflecting. It was sweet and touching but caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it at first. I was mentioned in the obituary of somebody

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Agree to Disagree

As thoughts turn to reopening churches, I have been thinking less about the logistics of that (although I know that matters a lot) and more about what it means to “agree to disagree” as the church. How can we do that well as Christ followers? How can we do that

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Timely Questions

“Everything has changed, and nothing will ever be the same.”    “Things will settle down, and we’ll get  back to normal soon.” “Some stuff might change and some will probably stay the same.” “I don’t know.” If you took every opinion about what the church will look like post-pandemic, they could

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You Can Do This Church

This is one of those times when it is hard to know what to write. There is so much going on and everything is changing so fast. What do you say? I almost didn’t write anything because there is lots of other stuff to focus on and things aren’t normal,

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Talk With, Not About

The other day, somebody asked me my “analysis” as to how things had gone sideways in a local church.  Attendance, budget, and relationships had all been affected over the course of time and now some folks were looking to get things back on track. There were plenty of things I

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