To remind my readers: I am an ordained minister with fifteen years’ experience in performing weddings. I have credentials to preform weddings in the District of Columbia.
And, yes: I will talk to same-sex couples looking to marry. (Indeed, I am half of a same-sex couple.)
As you might know, the District of Columbia will [...]
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Category Archives: Ministerial practice
I officiate weddings in the District of Columbia
Clergy sexual misconduct site resumes
I’m glad to see Speaking Truth to Power — a site addressing clergy sexual misconduct (CSM) resume. In its own words, “its specific focus is Unitarian Universalist processes for dealing with CSM.” Though popularly conflated with child sexual abuse, the risk of clergy sexual misconduct remains and in a congregational system there’s little natural recourse [...]
End-of-year giving: good choices and a particular option
I stand for fiscal responsibility in non-profit organizations. Money entrusted for the common good should be used wisely and efficiently. Donors should — and increasingly do — seek out organizations with desirable missions and with the capacity to work efficiently.
I’ve been critical of churches that function like clubs as betraying this calculus; why, for instance, [...]
Maundy Thursday service visit
Perhaps I’m just grouchy or it’s a side-effect of not going to church very much any more, but I don’t have much patience for mainline Protestant worship. The Maundy Thursday service I attended tonight wasn’t bad as such, but could have been made much better by few changes. So I make these recommendations with [...]
Tiny church administration: No newsletter, no web site
How did the church newsletter become an essential feature of church communications? If you look to nineteenth century Universalist newspapers, you know they handed many functions of the church newsletter, including inspiring thoughts, service notices, denominational affairs and family crises.
There’s a story about the proliferation of local church newsletters, I’m sure, but I suspect [...]
Sermon writing workflow?
A simple request. Do any of the preachers who read this blog have an accustomed workflow for preparing sermons that you would like to share?
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Communion service blog news
There were two recent blog posts others wrote that I wanted to lift up respecting Communion.
1. Cee Jay (Cee Jay’s Cyber Space) notes how the interim minister of her church recommends a monthly communion service — either before or after the main service — and she suggests this might fill a liturgical and pastoral void. [...]
Parson’s Handbook: standards of manners can be liberating
I’ve made it to page 43 — but still in the Introduction — in The Parson’s Handbook, with much of the intervening text more concerning with period controversy about the licit use of ancient ceremonial which, however interesting and useful it might be to Anglican liturgists, is of limited utility here.
Then Dearmer writes about how [...]
“Geeks and God”
Please excuse me, I’ll be blogging a bit less than usual this week. I discovered an interesting blog+podcast called Geeks and God that takes Christian and church-related matters of technology and open-source quite seriously. I’ll be listening to these and taking notes. I also have to clean up and improve UniversalistChurch.net — I just upgraded [...]
