The World's Okayest Pastor

What follows below is a paper I wrote for a worship class on weddings from 2008. I'm happy to say that civil unions (same sex marriage) is now legal in 19 states, the federal government has agreed to recognize all civil unions and DOMA laws are now being legal challenged in all of the states that have not allowed same sex marriage.            As one stands in line at the grocery check out line, you will find at least one magazine devoted to marriage, specifically brides. There’s usually a picture of the happy bride, sometimes with the groom, with headlines such as how to have a grand wedding for only a grand and so on. Young children are encouraged to play out fantasies about getting married with dolls [1] . Marriage in the United States has become a vast marketing opportunity, which is a multi-million dollar a year industry. The Church has to rethink what is appropriate. The American Church has to find ways to bridge the function of the state and t...

This past weekend the Indiana region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination voted to remove sexuality as one of the criteria they will use to say they recommend a candidate be ordained into Christian ministry. What this does do is allow individual congregations more freedom in ordaining who they see fit to ordain - a move to being true to the history of the denomination where each church is free to make it's own decisions. This statement is neither for or against the ordination of homosexual individuals. And while I'm happy that this is a step in the right direction, in the effort to find equality, I want the denomination to get on board with this discussion. I want to see the denomination, like others, stop saying that it is going to discern the issue of homosexuality and the life of the church and bring the issue up in a serious, balanced manner for talk and debate at the general/national level. I honestly see that this is an issue that needs to be discu...

When I moved from Des Moines, IA to Lexington, KY I was introduced to this place called Chick-fil-a. I love chicken and theirs is good...I mean good! I understood that the folks who own the company were conservative but then again isn't half of America? I was cool with letting them believe their own thing and I believe mine. But now records and statements come out about how millions of dollars are being spent to prevent my friends, family and people that I don't know from being officially allowed to be who they are. I have a major issues with this because they're dragging in my faith to speak for them. They're quoting Bible passages left and right to say that marriage is defined as 1 man and 1 woman. They're saying that marriage is the Church's to decide. Well let's take a look at all that's wrong with these statements. 1) Marriage did not start out as a Biblical act. It was an act of protecting property therefore it was a civil act first and foremost. R...