Today is December 2, 2020. Today my dad would have turned 96. It has been a challenging year. But days roll by, the earth keeps spinning regardless. I thought I would share the top posts this year.

1. Reflection, Restoration, and Redemption, and the Three Little Pigs. 2015. This was a story I wrote that utilized the characters of the pigs to explore the differences between the 3 Rs. I feel it does that quite well.
2. Oral Transmission and “Rida Rida Runka.” 2013. This is an odd post. I looked at the Scandanavian children’s rhyme Rida Rida Runka and how it was transmitted generation after generation, even in places where the original language competence has been lost. I kind of used this to show the importance of understanding oral transmission even in literate societies. In ministry one should never forget the importance of orality and the techniques that help oral communication to survive and even endure beyond written communication.
3. Reminiscing with Mr. Bean. 2014. This is a bit more autobiographical and talks about our transition from living in the US to serving in the Philippines. A weird mixture of wistful nostalgia and anxiety.
4. The Chicken that Laid the Golden Egg. 2018. A modest reworking of the classic The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. The story was fleshed out a bit with it incorporated into a sermon. Actually, it was one of my better sermons, IMHO.
5. Problems with Spiritual Gifts. 2017. This one is also a bit autobiographical. I used to lead spiritual gift seminars. But as I continued I realized that much of what I was teaching was stuff that was made up. I also started to see that while Spiritual Gifts are given by God to empower the church to serve, it has become used to divide the church in recent years. That is still true. Just this last Sunday a member of our church was confused because of pastor from another church was telling her that she should “speak in tongues” because people who do have a special “communion” with the Holy Spirit. Such a belief is not in the Bible, and certainly does not appear to be in line with the purpose of Spiritual gifts. The pastor, sadly, appears to be trying to cause problems in a different church. (If he wants to cause trouble, he should do it in his own.) Anyway, I feel the post covers many of the problems with how Spiritual Gifts are understood today.