Ministry in the Middle

As I write this, I am concluding a few weeks of paternity leave, after the birth of our second child.  The leave has allowed me to focus almost exclusively on my family for the past month, for which I am grateful. I believe strongly that paid family leave is a necessary part of professional ministry, allowing ministers to focus on their families immediately after a birth, adoption, death, or during a loved one's serious illness.  The demands of ministry sometimes compete with family time, and too often ministers feel pressure to choose one or the other.  Family leave not only supports ministers during challenging times, but also reminds congregations that being an active part of a family is an essential part of the minister's vocation too. Frankly, I think we create unhealthy expectations throughout the church for ministers and other leaders.  They have to show up  in specific situations, regardless of time of day or how much else is on their plate.  I ...

Like many, I was both shocked and unsurprised by the recent revelation of a lucrative effort by wealthy parents to buy their children admissions spots in prominent colleges and universities .  I was stunned by the amount of money involved, and by the payoffs that many college coaches took, in order to facilitate the efforts.  On the other hand, it has long been an open secret that wealthy people -- particularly alumni -- have enormous influence to help their children gain college admission, regardless of their academic records. Even so, this scandal has dramatically caught the public's attention.  Early on, it even pushed the ongoing political soap opera as the top story in the country.  Some of this awareness is likely due to the involvement of a couple of recognizable actresses.  Even more, the scandal points to the conventional wisdom that the rich in this country play by completely different rules. Many people have debated the injustices highlighted by t...

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers  by Maxwell King (Harry N. Abrams, 2018), 320 pages Won't You Be My Neighbor?  directed by Morgan Neville  (Focus Films, 2018), 94 minutes 2018 was a significant year in remembering Fred Rogers, the creator and star of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood."  Over the summer, Oscar-winning filmaker Morgan Neville released a documentary on Rogers, which had significant popularity for a documentary.  It grossed almost $23 million and at one point was screened in almost 900 theaters in the US .  (It was also well regarded, earning a 98% fresh score from Rotten Tomatoes .)  This fall, a new biography, The Good Neighbor , was released.  And, to put the cherry on top of the sundae, a new film was shot, in which beloved actor Tom Hanks will portray Rogers; currently it's scheduled to be released around Thanksgiving 2019. By happy coincidence, I read the new book and then watched the documentary in a two-week ...