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It's the "unforgivable" part that gets me. How can there be an unforgivable sin? 

Home is a recurring fascination of mine. I've lived in six different states and nine different houses or apartments (not including the itinerant college years). For me, home is a mixture of three things: 1) people, 2) land and 3) history.

Last week it was reported that Facebook is thinking about lowering their minimum age so that kids under the age of 13 can join the social network, with parental supervision. Many people think this is a bad idea, and some have even suggested that the age requirement should be raised. As someone who works with youth, I know that many kids under the age of 13 are already using Facebook, sometimes even with their parents' permission and help. I may have a different perspective when my own son is 11 years old, but right now I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing.

Near the end of serving my last church, I helped a family bury their 44-year old brother. But he was also son, husband, father, and grandfather. Let’s call him Sam. One of eight children, Sam met and married his wife when they were teenagers. Soon, they gave birth to two daughters. And the daughters had children. Many at the funeral were under 50, and quite a few were parents with kids. Throughout the service there were bursts of giggles and sudden loud cries. For the children, a sanctuary was unfamiliar, even unsettling.

I have a theory about young adults and the church. Here it goes. Let me know what you think. While many churches say “we want young people” they don’t really. If young adults actually showed up and joined their church for good, the change they’d naturally bring with them would be stark, even off-putting. In fact, making a congregation welcoming for young adults necessarily means it will become less comfortable for the current members. It’s just a theory, but here’s why I’m suggesting it.

How do we solve the gender gap in ministry? With women outnumbering men in seminaries today, how we do break that stained glass ceiling? Our current approach in the Presbyterian Church is to require churches, when looking for a pastor, to interview at least one female candidate. The thinking is, of the final three or four candidates, there would be a woman in the mix, and perhaps even churches with an unspoken default of pastor=male might be sufficiently moved to think outside the box. Not that every church will follow that up with a call to that woman, of course. This is mysterious Holy Spirit stuff, not to mention that there are women pastors who aren’t all that. But churches should at least look. Do you think this helps?

1. According to the gospels, Jesus talked about money and possessions frequently. It seems like it is worthy of more of church leaders’ attention than we give it in our preaching and teaching. 2. People have to deal with money every day. We need to provide more spiritual support for them in their daily lives with money.

It happened again today.  I drove up to one of my favorite cafes in a nearby town and was shocked to find it closed.  I don’t mean closed today.  I mean closed forever.  But they knew me there!  They knew I liked those vanilla creamers and my eggs poached hard!  I sat with the engine running, hungry and caffeine-deprived, wondering where I would go for breakfast.  Why didn’t they warn me?  I would have come by to say good-bye.