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11/17/2009
147. The Wall
This month, the world celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On Nov 9, 1989, the gates were opened and crowds of people from East and West Germany intermingled freely for the first time in decades. They began to pick apart the wall, stone by stone, to the utter astonish
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9/3/2009
138. What’s in a Word?
Since high school I’ve had an active curiosity about words, idioms, writing, and language, and how our perception of reality is limited or enlarged by the words available to us.
Recently I heard a linguistic philosopher speak on these topics, offering several interesting stories. For instance
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7/20/2009
135. Cinco Prácticas—The Spanish Edition
I’m delighted to announce the release this week by Abingdon Press of the new Spanish edition of Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, entitled Cinco Prácticas de Congregaciones Fructíferas.
The road toward the Spanish translation began two years ago with requests from pastor
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4/27/2009
126. Silence Speaks
In my blog a couple weeks ago, I told the story about a deaf ministry in a congregation. This visit reminded me of another experience several years ago when I was studying Spanish in Costa Rica. One Friday afternoon I took a taxi to downtown San Jose. I visited a museum, walked through an
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11/11/2008
95. Praying for the President
Last week, I signed a Bible along with all the other Bishops of the United Methodist Church that will be presented to President-elect Barak Obama as he prepares to assume office. This is a practice that is repeated by the Council of Bishops with each new President. A few of my older colleagues
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4/30/2008
62. A Daughter of United Methodism
General Conference Notebook, April 30
The highlight of our work together on Tuesday was a visit from United Methodist laywoman and President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Security was tight, the building was secured by local police, and the President's entourage arrived as Liberian Bishop
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