I’m off on retreat. Technology-free.

So I thought this would be a good time to look back on my favorite ‘Good Stuff’ articles so far this year, curate them for you, and set them to publish while I’m gone.

So that’s what I’m doing!

These next few Fridays - July 3, 10, and 17, I’m sharing 10 of my favorite articles from past ‘Good Stuff’ Friday blogs.

I can’t tell you how hard it is to narrow them down to just 30 articles (plus one of my own each week). There is SO much good writing about the church, life with God, and how to live a meaningful life. And running. And other random things.

It will be hard to miss a bunch of writing during these weeks, too - I’ll mostly be off-line. But I’ll spend some extra time working on it when I come back.

In the meantime, here’s next 10 articles, from March 13 - May 1, 2026. I sure enjoyed reading them again…

When the Heart Shifts

by

‘Then I asked her to imagine something else. God sits down beside you, looks you in the eye, and says, “I love you.”

Judith fell silent. After a few moments she said quietly, “I’ve never thought of that. That would be really different.”’

I wanna die with a mellow heart

by

’In living and dying, my aunt taught me how to be and how not to be.

Because of her, I have a personal goal to live and die without bitterness.’

The Wolf in the Pew

by

‘There are people who meet the wolf and run. There are people who meet the wolf and try to kill it. And then, every now and then, there is someone brave or stubborn enough to say,

“Come here. Sit down. Eat something. Stop biting people.”’

This is Not Simple Generational Replacement

by

‘If you walked into a church any Sunday over the last 35 years, the person most likely sitting next to you was a Baby Boomer.

That was true in 1990. It was still true in 2024.

Even as Boomers have gone from 45% of the GSS sample to just 25%, they remain the dominant force in American pews. That’s a genuinely hard thing to wrap your head around.’

Trying to Win at Everything Is Why You’re Losing

by

‘If you’re reading this, you’re likely ambitious. High-achieving. On this Monday morning, you’ve got a dragon to slay and a mountain to climb. Here’s where many of us go wrong: we refuse to turn any burners down, even temporarily.’

Burnout Is Just The Beginning

by

‘Today, I share the truth that your current situation isn’t the end of the road for you. I share my story to show others there are alternative paths to pursuing God’s will and you never have to journey alone.’

Becoming Happy in 10 Easy Steps

by

‘But a happiness that comes from living a rich, moral life that’s centered around Him and His kingdom is something followers of Jesus have been pointing toward from the very beginning.Joy, happiness, flourishing, etcetera aren’t the goal of our spirituality, but they’re an undeniable side effect.’

I got married two weeks ago

by

‘I sat there on that chair so forlorn and angry, and then I watched you walking across the street in the sunshine. You looked at me and smiled. I held the door open for you and said a whole bunch of dumb jokes. And you laughed.

Your laugh. So free, so lovely.

During the wedding weekend, people asked me when I “knew” you were someone special. I told them I knew it five minutes into that first date, when you laughed.’

The gel isn’t glamorous

by

‘Delaney, “How was your run, Mom?”

Me: “Great! I ate sugar for 3 hours and watched the sun come up.”

Delaney laughed.

Me: “I’d better go brush my teeth.”

The Silence at the Altar

by

‘When you stand at the altar, you do not stand only with those who are visibly present. You stand within the prayer of the whole Church, with the saints and the faithful departed, with those scattered across time and place, and indeed for a world that does not know how to pray for itself’

Here’s one thing I wrote..

No one is looking at your static church website

‘he internet now works like a city (so does the church). Now you have to actively work to to be seen.

You have to be on a busy street, where people are passing by. You have to have people talking about you. You have to be in conversation.

A beautiful building tucked down an unmarked alley (or a country road) that nobody ever walks by will not be seen.

We know this is true literally for church - now it’s true digitally as well, because of the way the internet has changed.

and finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

It’s the 4th of July weekend. Then I’m off on retreat.

So I thought this would be a good time to look back on my favorite ‘Good Stuff’ articles so far this year, curate them for you, and set them to publish while I’m gone.

So that’s what I’m doing!

These next few Fridays - July 3, 10, and 17, I’m sharing 10 of my favorite articles from past ‘Good Stuff’ Friday blogs.

I can’t tell you how hard it is to narrow them down to just 30 articles (plus one of my own each week). There is SO much good writing about the church, life with God, and how to live a meaningful life. And running. And other random things.

It will be hard to miss a bunch of writing during these weeks, too - I’ll mostly be off-line. But I’ll spend some extra time working on it when I come back.

In the meantime, enjoy the first 10 articles, from January 9 - March 6, 2026. I sure enjoyed reading them again…

My Mom Died Well - Here’s What that Taught Me

by

‘A good death isn’t defined in the final hours. It’s built — day by day, year by year — in the living that comes before it.’

How far back in time can you understand English?

by
’It’s a thousand years of the English language, compressed into a single blog post.

Read it and notice where you start to struggle. Notice where you give up entirely. Then meet me on the other side and I’ll tell you what happened to the language (and the blogger).’

Invoking the Lord

by

‘We can’t worship what we don’t know. What we are invoking are the actions the Lord reveals to us.

So chew on that.’

To Fill the Church with Wonder

by

‘My mind told me the unusual lighting effect was achieved through water droplets reflecting ground light, magnified by the season’s peculiar atmospheric conditions.

My heart, though, responded differently.’

My Best Friends Are Endurance Athletes

by

‘People sometimes joke that triathlon friendships are bonded by suffering. There’s truth in that, but I think it’s deeper: we’re bonded by chosen suffering.

This Is Not Ministry

by

‘Ministry becomes programmatic. Not because programs are inherently evil, but because programs, by their structure, cannot be relational in the way the New Testament describes’

The School of Adulting

by

‘One of the hidden geniuses of a healthy church body is young people learn how to be adults from men and women who have figured out a lot of things about how to live a life that matters’

Why Replicate When You Can Reimagine?

by

‘It’s one thing to copy-and-paste Sunday morning onto a screen. It’s another to cultivate worship that is native to the space where it’s happening.’

Seeing the deer

by

‘I love to watch them leap. But I love to watch them standing still as well. The stillness between us seems like an unspoken prayer. What is my prayer? Perhaps it is, “please let me get a little closer.” Or, “let this moment last.” Perhaps it is just the wonder, the “now” of it.’

Christianity as vocation

by

‘But he also shared his conviction that all Christians are called by God to do good in the world. I said, “Yes! That is our baptismal covenant!” which is the real sign I’ve been deep in the weeds of Episcopal ordination exams. One does not usually just say “baptismal covenant” in the wild to non-Episcopalians. (But maybe we should!)’

Here’s one thing I wrote..

Fasting as a ‘weapon of love’

‘Fasting is our call to spiritual endurance training. To hearing God’s voice, and nothing else. To remembering our dependence on God, and our preparation for standing on holy ground.’

and finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Listening to New Languages’ by . ‘Are we listening for the ways of God? Do we hear the language that He speaks to us? Often we feel like He’s silent, but of course He’s always talking, we’re just no good at hearing.’

• ‘A Theology of Walking’ by . ‘But here’s the gist: whenever you’re feeling stumped, overwhelmed, or overstimulated, one of the best possible responses is GO FOR A WALK.’

Church stuff

• ‘Does The Church Matter?’ by . ‘We need the church to be — not triumphalist, not self-aggrandizing, but also not apologetic. We need the church and churches, and those who lead them, to be confident.’

• ’In Praise of Small Churches’ by . ‘I also think we have quietly absorbed an assumption that small automatically means failing. I do not think that assumption is true. Some of the holiest ministry I have ever witnessed has happened in small churches.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘I have a big problem with Dave Ramsey’ by . ‘If the goal is “don’t be in debt,” then why did my no-debt lifestyle sideline me during critical years for making important financial decisions?’

• ‘25 Years of Decisions’ by . ‘Every day there’s something to let go of. In the release, there is always a surprising combination of grief and joy; a curious kind of death and a new kind of life.’
  

What I wrote this week:

I’m deep into consolidating my ministry, so I’m re-issuing older articles…

Also, I was on a wonderful podcast this week. Thank you so much and !

Extraordinary Catholics

Wisdom from a Free Range Priest®!

In this episode, Reverend Trish and Father Jayme speak with Free Range Priest® Father Cathie Caimano. She shares of her vocation and ministry within the Episcopal tradition, changing paradigms in the Church, the “cages” in which many clergy find themselves, and how we might better work “inside, outside and alongside” the institutional Church. Father Cat…

Listen now

16 days ago · Hon. Rev. Dr. Jayme Mathias and Rev. Trish Sullivan Vanni, PhD

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Learning to See’ by . ‘The theologian who helped secure Nicene orthodoxy presents his deepest reflection on death, the soul, and the love of God as something he received, from a woman, at her feet.’

• ‘The Freakin’ Miracle of Being Alive’ by . ‘And I thought, “Ministry of presence, my ass. All this woman needs is something no human being can give.”

Church stuff

• ‘Five Real Things In No Particular Order’ by . ‘There were informal phone trees and schedules to make sure not everybody showed up at Sister Anita’s door on the first day after her surgery. But that was more to regulate the flow than to ensure the flow would happen. It was for sure gonna happen, because the church was full of people who were genuinely Sister Anita’s friends, and they weren’t about to let one square inch of her fridge and freezer remain uncasseroled.’

• ‘Feed my sheep - the 21st c. parish priest’ by . ‘We become light so we may share light. We are fed so we may feed. The pastoral call is to engage people in their own renewal.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘What Am I Counting?’ by . ‘All God ever sees is a child, a beloved child. God shows us we can see, and be, this way too.’

• ‘The Spiritual Practice of Reading Fiction’ by . ‘Something happens at the soul level when it comes to stories. Consider how Jesus used short stories to teach the crowd. Think about how a whole congregation leans forward and pays attention when the pastor starts telling a story.’
  

What I wrote this week:

I’m deep into consolidating my ministry, so I’m re-issuing older articles…

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Why Are We All So Immature?’ by . ‘The best models usually aren’t putting themselves in the spotlight; they’re usually off to the side, beating their chest saying “Have mercy on me, a sinner.” We need saints, not celebrities; we need models who care more about theosis, union with Christ, than building platform.’

• ‘What’s the Hurry?’ by . ‘Religion has become the manual typewriter of the spiritual life for many people. It’s not bad. And some still want to use it for nostalgia’s sake or to suit their own purposes. But generally speaking, religion has become one among many options, not an existential necessity.’

Church stuff

• ‘You Arrive as a Person. You Become a Case’ by ‘the machinery of institutional response is not oriented toward them. It is oriented toward the organization. The person who fell is the occasion for the process, not the purpose of it.’

• ‘How ‘Inclusive’ Church Excludes’ by . ‘Inclusion is not a destination but a direction. It tells us that a door is open, but it says nothing about what lies beyond.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘When will Modern English end?’ by . ‘There’s a quotation attributed to Chinese statesman Zhou Enlai, who, when asked by Henry Kissinger about the impact of the French Revolution — which had occurred almost two centuries prior to this conversation — is reported to have said, “It is too soon to tell.”’

• ‘For the Love of Dogs’ by . ‘I think of Alvin, the irascible dog, and how, in his last moments, he leaned into his owner with trust. I don’t know what it means, exactly, but it seems like grace to me. It seems like love. Alvin loved his family, in whatever way he could. And his family loved him.’
  

What I wrote this week:

I’m deep into consolidating my ministry, so I’m re-issuing older articles…

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Beloved Authenticity’ by . ‘Sanctity, for Merton, was not about becoming someone else. It was about becoming who you already are in God.’

• ‘Let’s Talk Money’ by . ‘A rule is about ultimate concerns—about deciding what does and does not matter in this life as illumined by the next. And maybe this is why we don’t want to be talking about money. Like the Rich Young Ruler, we grow sad that God should ask so much of us.’

Church stuff

• ‘The Commodification Of Christianity’ by . ‘The awful truth of it, I have to be honest, is that I put off going to church because I know that I can. I’ve got my phone.’

• ‘A Too Small Life’ by . ‘You are witness to this life.

  It was life so small that it took over a month for anyone to notice. A life so folded in on itself that there is no one to even grieve, truly for her, the loss of her, the hole she left in their life. She left no holes in anyone’s life. That’s a choice.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘Sometimes…’ by . ‘Poets, mystics, children and sages have, for centuries, pointed towards our attention as being inseparable from our love.’

• ‘A Behold! Walk’ by . ‘Beholding is transformational. What I see, experience, and feel has a pathway into my soul’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘Ask Father Cathie’ - I didn’t really ‘write’ this - it’s my monthly advice live stream. Usually just for paid subscribers, it’s open to everyone while I’m upgrading.
  
  This week’s question:
  ‘Should I take a $2,500 annual stipend for a chaplain job?’
  
  
  From St. Paul’s, Salisbury:
  

• ‘Why doctrines matter: they’re invitations into mystery’. ‘Doctrine is the shape or our beliefs. And that shape is always a triangle.’
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Leading causes of life’ by . ‘How can we - as individuals and as spiritual leaders - partner with God in taking tiny steps toward more connection, coherence, agency, hope, and blessing?’

• ‘Searching for God in Silicon Valley’ by . ‘I pray. So far no one has answered, or at least not so clearly that my agnostic ears can undeniably hear it. But I am still listening. If there is a God, I hope he is watching San Francisco in the year of our Lord 2026.’

Church stuff

• ‘Can evangelicals become more sacramental as sacramentalists become more evangelical?’ by . ‘what are the limits for us evangelical, low-church Protestants in developing a sacramental theology? Can we see all creation as sacramental without the sacramental accoutrements of Rome or Greece (altars, vestments, icons, etc.)?’

• ‘Is the Mainline Holding Together Two Different Faiths?’ by ‘once Christianity becomes about living like Jesus without believing in Jesus and his work through the church, then the church becomes an “unnecessary overhead.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘What Has Changed’ by . ‘You must be willing to actually let go of those days, because you cannot cling to what was and expect to be able to simultaneously hold today. You are incapable of being in two places at once.’

• ‘Kissing Cement at Full Speed’ by . ‘Divorce has an added layer in the grief process that comes before denial: Disillusionment.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘The Pope said ‘use AI for Love’. ‘It’s not just about how they are using AI (tech companies, governments, etc).It’s also how we are.We have power we have never had before to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth.’
  
  
  From St. Paul’s, Salisbury:
  

• ‘What if we didn’t grow - and that was the point?’ ‘We have definitely added members over the last few years - and we hope to continue adding members. But the mission of the church is to share the Gospel, and we have everything we need to do that already, no matter our size.’
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘I Know the Author’ by . ‘But God has been writing. He has authored a new chapter with twists and turns none of us expected. I look at my daughter today and I couldn’t be prouder of her. I am grateful to a God who sees it all, holds it all, and never gives up through it all.’

• ‘Theology of Eating Alone, II: The Table That Remains’ by . ‘Eating alone can carry a sense that something is missing, and in human terms that perception is often accurate. Still, the Christian tradition suggests that the act itself remains connected to a larger reality.’

Church stuff

• ‘Do You Believe This? The Crisis of Ecclesiology in Mainline Protestantism’ by . ‘I think that is the question that is staring Mainline Protestantism in the face: do we believe this? Do we believe this Jesus stuff is all true? Do we believe God is alive and not just a concept? Do we believe God can change lives, set the prisoner free, give sight to the blind, and raise the dead?’

• ‘Anglican Missives: On the History & Theology of the Eucharist’ . ‘Communion has always been the result of (rigorous) formation. And given the fallow harvest after fifty years of next-to-no formation in the church for much of anything, I think we need to start requiring higher commitments, not lower ones!
  

Other stuff

• ‘You can’t build trust without vulnerability’ by . You don’t need more relationships. We all say we want deeper trust. Easy way to practice this week, someone asks how you are, tell them how you are (really).’

• ‘Why I'm Writing This’ by ‘I am writing it because I need to know if what remains is enough.’

  
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘Why you should make Substack your church website’. ‘Today, I use any browser’s search function and just ask, “Where is [friend’s name] serving right now?” and I immediately get the info I’m looking for. I never see the church’s website.’
  
  
  From Trexo:
  

• ‘The table of the Lord is an act of resistance.’ ‘When I ‘asked’ Perpetua what she would want us to know today: far removed from her time and her suffering, she reminded us all that when we come to the table, we are saying yes to Jesus.’
  
  From Substack Seminary (and written by ):
  

• ‘What does “thriving” actually look like?’ ‘How do we minimize the work that drains us and maximize the work that brings life?’
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Piece by piece’, by . ‘But we all know deep faith comes slowly, and it needs time to grow. If it does not, it is not growing. Healing is the same’.

• ‘The Other Shoe Doesn’t Have to Drop’ by . ‘Sudden disaster may come, but it must not become the thing that controls our lives.’

Church stuff

• ‘The Hidden Danger in Becoming Orthodox That Is Rarely Talked About’ by ‘…there is often an unspoken assumption beneath all this activity, that Christianity is something to be figured out, rather than something to be lived.’

• ‘The Hypothetical as Apocalyptic’ by . ‘I contend that our violent social imaginary has stunted our imagination for creative nonviolence.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘The Bird on the Windowsill’ by . ‘A small round head with a tiny beak and bright obsidian eyes looks at me, then turns its head to watch the cherry blossoms on the front slope of the apartment building’s lawn flutter in the warm breeze.’

• ‘Dispatches Del Camino’ by . ‘my favorite saying of all: “Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.” Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are.

  
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘AI is a gift to the church.’ ‘It’s why I think the church should see AI as the gift it is. It can do so many things - not all of them good, of course. But what it can’t do is the one thing we proclaim is the most valuable power there is: LOVE.

  We need God for that’.
  
  From Trexo:
  

• We don’t have to ‘go’ to church. Maybe we’re called to practice our faith even when we’re not ‘in church’. Maybe we can re-capture the idea of prayer, worship, and practice is the enter of our lives - wherever we are, and whatever we’re doing.
  
  From Substack Seminary (and written by ):

• ‘Sustainability isn’t the same thing as faithfulness’. ‘ Yes, I believe in trusting God. Yes, I believe faith sometimes requires risk. But as others have said:

  “God invented math.”
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Why I’m a Christian, Not a Stoic.’ by . ‘Even when Jesus’ emotions were inconvenient, He didn’t dance around them. His “familiarity with sorrow” attests that experiencing emotion with utmost sincerity isn’t a burden, but an invitation into a textured, paradoxical, abundant life. The good life is upside down.’

• "You Are..." by . ‘Last week, you were sheep. This week, You are .... stones, plain old stones. Plain old stones, but the house of God. Plain old stones, but mementos of God’s presence in the wilderness. Plain old stones, but being built into a spiritual house. But not without some rock-tumbling, and some grit.

Church stuff

• ‘On the Complexity of Evaluating Cultural Christianity‘ by . ‘The question of how is too often neglected in these debates. It’s one thing to want culture to reflect Christian values; it’s quite another to inch it toward that goal in practice’.

• ‘The Mainline Church is Running out of Pastors: Part 3’ by ‘Because congregational ministry is not primarily about visibility or platform.

  It’s about showing up. Week after week. In rooms that no one else sees.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘The Joy Series: Old Dogs’ by . ‘You might ask: How is this part of the joy series? This seems very sad. And it is sad, but not really, because Westley is not sad. He’s exactly as he’s always been. He’s stretched out right now at my feet, sleeping the sleep of angels, and every now and again, he will look up at me in that familiar way as if to say, ‘Come on, man, you should have finished that writing by now.’’

• ’The People Who Carry You’ by . ‘Before I made my way to the start line, my family, crew, and pacers all gathered in a circle, and we wrapped our arms around each other. I closed my eyes and bowed my head’.

  
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘Why using today’s tech is not optional for ministry’. We need to be able to convey to others how important it is to be in relationship with God, and with faith community. We have to be able to connect others directly with what it is we’re sharing before they will ever feel comfortable joining us in-person. We have to build spaces and relationships that are deep and meaningful even when they don’t happen in person.’

• ’How it Works: What do you gain from spiritual fitness?’ St. Benedict: ‘Your heart will be ‘enlarged’. What felt like ‘roughness and pain’ at the beginning will be transformed into ‘ineffable sweetness of love.’

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘The Wolf in the Pew’ by .
  ’There are people who meet the wolf and run. There are people who meet the wolf and try to kill it. And then, every now and then, there is someone brave or stubborn enough to say, “Come here. Sit down. Eat something. Stop biting people.”

• ‘We Weren’t Created to Experience Everything All At Once’ by .
  “There is no other life I would have rather chosen for myself than the life I’m currently living.” Why? Because it is a gift from God.’

Church stuff

• ‘The Mainline Church is Running out of Pastors: Part 2’ by
  ’We often hear about a “pastor shortage,” yet the systems designed to connect pastors and churches can be slow, opaque, and difficult to navigate.’

• ‘Lingering in Church Graveyards’ by .
  ’The old church buildings and services of our grandparents’ childhood may have appeared boring and irrelevant—designed as they were for prayer and silent reflection, weddings, baptisms, and funerals—but since our present churches have been optimized for entertainment and advertisement, we’re beginning to feel the loss.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘Confluence’ by .
  ’We are all a confluence of streams and the resulting flow of our lives is enriched and shaped by all the energy we absorb and engage’.

• ‘20 tips for people who make art’ by .
  ’The greatest joy in life is to nurture what’s alive in another.
  Nurturing someone’s art is a way of telling them that you love them.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘No one is looking at your static church website.’
  ’A church with closed doors and empty buildings on a lonely road is not going to have people passing by or dropping in. So it is when church that builds a website, puts up their service times and some lovely pictures, and then... nothing else. They’re languishing in a dark corner, unseen’.

• ‘Be still and know that I am God’.
  ‘We came home with a sense of God’s presence, God’s calling, and the adventure of moving forward in faith - even though it’s hard, even though we don’t know exactly what that looks like yet (and that’s ok).’

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Intentionally Complex’, by .
  ‘That means when I am longing for someone to notice and acknowledge me, heal, and take care of me, love and support me, He is always present and understands the intricate mechanics of each person, individually.

  That’s a useful thought when I am opening my fridge for something that won’t be there.’

• ‘Known in the Breaking’, by ‘That’s not how resurrection tends to arrive. It arrives in the breaking. In a gesture repeated so many times that its ordinariness is part of the recognition. In the bread taken and blessed and broken and given at a table where nobody has it all figured out, where every one of us is, in some sense, walking our own road to Emmaus — a little lost, a little dazed and confused, a little bit slow getting the punchline, our hearts burning in ways we can’t yet explain’.

Church stuff

• ‘This is Not Simple Generational Replacement’ by .
  ‘If you walked into a church any Sunday over the last 35 years, the person most likely sitting next to you was a Baby Boomer. That was true in 1990. It was still true in 2024.
  Even as Boomers have gone from 45% of the GSS sample to just 25%, they remain the dominant force in American pews. That’s a genuinely hard thing to wrap your head around’.

• ’Peace be with you (and also with you)’ by .
  ’I became freshly aware that making peace isn’t passive, quiet, and avoidant. It is active, requires admitting that I’m wrong and still learning, and often disrupts my own comfort for the sake of making it right with another. And as is often true, this work of peace starts at home.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘Enjoy Every Sandwich’, by .
  ‘What would it mean to redeem time? Is time something we must spend wisely (atone the time itself)? Or is time like a credit, one used to make our lives more worthy? For that matter, what, exactly, would redeemed time look like? Death only raises the stakes of such questions.’

• ‘The Problem with Fear’, by .
  ‘And I can honestly say that after all these years of experiencing fear, I have learned something: Fear is not in your head. There are no thoughts you can think to get rid of it. Because fear is not a head problem. Fear starts in your soul’.
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘My Digital Conversion’. ‘I don’t think it was a coincidence that I landed at a place where the internet was developing before my eyes, just as I was deep in the midst of religious formation’.

• ’Time for being with God in nature, and each other in conversation’. ‘We’re encouraging ourselves to be “fearless and faithful” in discussing what St. Paul’s could look like - or wants to be - in the future of church’.

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘It’s Like Breathing’, by . ‘Looking back, she was doing what a disciple of Jesus does. She wasn’t trying to convert me or signal her piety. She was simply offering herself as a friend.’

• ‘I waited so long for Spring.’ by . But this is God,
  His way of working… Slowly slowly, then suddenly. Inch by inch and then 100 miles per hour.’

Church stuff

• ‘The Risen Christ Walks With Small Churches’ by . ‘I hate hearing those stories because it makes me wonder: Am I doing a good job? Why am I a failure? What did I do wrong? If you’re the pastor of a small church, you probably feel the same way.’

• ‘Our Minds Can’t Sit Still Anymore’ by . ‘Churches are one of the last phone-discouraged public spaces where you can just sit with your thoughts—the things stirring around your consciousness, your paranoias, the self-reflection you’ve been putting off. While it’s not necessarily the most captivating marketing point (“Come on in! We’re boring and quiet!”), shared silence and slowness really is uniquely restorative.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘A Simple Way to Begin Celebrating Eastertide at Home’ by . ‘One of the things I have been thinking about this year is how to carry that joy into ordinary life at home.’

• ‘On Gnomes, Phones + Coming Home’, by . ‘So what do you do? Well, we got to talking with the people we were waiting in line with — a line that easily stretched to two or three thousand people spilling out into the parking lot.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘The real reason you can’t change the bulletin.’ ‘No one wants to change. And the faithful people left in our pews are the least likely to want to change anything - because the system still works for them. Or at least well enough that they’re still there. This should be respected.’

• ‘What’s in a name?’ by (I obviously did not write this, but it’s from a publication we share called . )
  ‘Names are the currency of your flourishing. Because a name doesn’t just describe what you do. It tells people who you are—and who you’re becoming.’

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘The Healing Power of Letting Go’ by . ‘Lament is a necessary and healthy response to grief, but it is not about self-pity or getting stuck in constant sorrow. In scripture, lament always moves toward hope.’

• ‘Easter Sunday & Impossible News’ by . ‘I’m glad we got the story of Easter instead. The story of the impossible, the impotence of weak leaders claiming to be strong, and the evergreen lesson that no matter how bad the news gets, it’s never the last news. And so we can say, “Alleluia! Christ is risen!”’

Church stuff

• ‘Why new work rarely gets funded’ by ‘In other words: The innovative work would still be done by newer leadership. But the funding would flow through an older institution.’

• ‘Burnout Is Just the Beginning’ by . ‘Despite terror filling my insides, I decided to jump and truly be set free, leaving behind the life I knew and had worked to achieve in order to discover a more sustainable way to do ministry’.
  

Other stuff

• ‘Zen and the Art of Caring For Your Equipment’ by . ‘I’ve always believed that how you care for your equipment says something deeper about how you care for your sport, and maybe even how you care for your life.’

• ’Trying to Win at Everything Is Why You’re Losing’ by . ‘What deserves my time and attention in this season? What needs to be turned down or turned back up? What dreams don’t need to die, but need to wait on the back burner?’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘“How do I get them to change” is not the question to ask’. ‘’How do I get my congregation to change?’ (also insert ‘priest’, ‘bishop’, ‘denomination’, ‘church board’, etc). The answer: You don’t.’

• ‘It’s Easter! Now what...?’ ‘The earliest spiritual training began with a conversation:
  ‘what do you seek?’ Physical trainers begin with lifestyle and fitness assessments, so they know how to guide their clients.The Trexo gym intake form is a little of each.’

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Beloveds, we are heading into the most important part of the most important week in the life of the church.

I wish you a blessed Holy Week - may your faith be renewed by walking the way of the cross.

There’s no ‘Good Stuff’ on Good Friday - so I’m sharing the beautiful writing I’ve discovered so far this week.

God stuff

• ‘Word and Sacrament at the Hospital Bedside’ by ’Hospitals are liminal spaces—fixed between life and death. Human beings enter through birth and depart through death, often within the same walls and at the same time.’

• ‘Cursing at Customer Service’ by . ‘How close did I come to discrediting my sermon? I was about three seconds away from steamrolling a visitor at my church, without even knowing it.’

Church stuff

• ‘Tragic Abundance: Spring Cleaning as Mortification’ by . ‘A typical American, I am vastly superior at the “feasting” and “ordinary time” execution of the liturgical schedule and not so great at the fasting and mortification times…;

• ‘Holy Tuesday Vows’ by . ‘What if, instead of clergy renewing their vows on Holy Tuesday, the Church renewed her vows to clergy that day?’
  

Other stuff

• ‘Dean, you gorgeous man!’ by . ‘I saw all this and then I spoke. “You two are a sign and a wonder!” and they chuckled at me.’

• ‘50 Names. 100 Miles.’ by . ‘Maybe you know this feeling, not from running, but from something you’re carrying right now. A hard season, a setback, or something that keeps asking more of you than you think you can handle.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘Staying awake with Jesus in Holy Week’. Jesus asked his disciples to stay awake with him for one hour. They couldn’t do it - at least not yet. But we’re called again to try… Join us for virtual Vigil at the Altar of Repose.’

• ‘The only Good News we get today is that it’s only the first day of the week’. ‘We’ve been walking through Holy Week - remembering with our lives. Ever since the first Christians did. Ever since the first crowds followed Jesus.’

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.

Subscribe now

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘People are Stories’ by . ‘The God who created us saw people as who were storied, people who were filled with volumes and chapters of life.’

• ‘The joy and hope of a repair cafe’ by . ‘There is beauty in the commitment to reducing, reusing, and recycling. But for me, the real gift is in the human connection and generosity of time that says, “You are good and deserve good things. How can I help?”’

Church stuff

• ‘The Silence at the Altar’ by . ‘When you stand at the altar, you do not stand only with those who are visibly present. You stand within the prayer of the whole Church, with the saints and the faithful departed, with those scattered across time and place, and indeed for a world that does not know how to pray for itself.’

• ‘An Obituary for the United Church of Christ?’ by . ‘Denominational leadership has met this reality with a combination of denial, wishful-thinking, doing what we’ve always done only more single-mindedly and even self-congratulation.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘What Punk Taught Me’ by . ‘What I took from punk, and what I’ve carried ever since, is that coalition doesn’t get built through shared agreement on aesthetics or ideology. It gets built through a shared commitment to something real.’

• ‘The Babylon Effect’ by . ‘In this biblical story [the Tower of Babel], people are building toward the sky together — until their language splinters. No one can understand each other anymore. The project stops. They scatter. Something structurally similar may be happening in digital products right now.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘How my ministry became ‘Cage Free’’. ‘So I proposed another possibility …
  what if we designed a new way to serve ministry together, that best supported everyone sharing the Gospel with minimal stress?’

• ‘Staying awake with Jesus in Holy Week’. Jesus asked his disciples to stay awake with him for one hour. They couldn’t do it - at least not yet. But we’re called again to try… Join us for virtual Vigil at the Altar of Repose.’

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘Becoming Happy in 10 Easy Steps’ by . ‘Prayer, Scripture study and memorization, fasting, generosity, gathering for worship—these are among the happiest activities we could choose at any given moment.’

• ‘I wanna die with a mellow heart’ by . ‘Because of her, I have a personal goal to live and die without bitterness.’

Church stuff

• ‘The Mainline Church Is Running Out of Pastors’ by ‘The mainline church may think it has a building problem or an attendance problem. What it actually has is a bench problem.’

• ‘Church-hopping, Part XV: “Coffee Hour” Edition’ by . ‘But here’s my secret: sometimes, I go to church for the “coffee hour.”’
  

Other stuff

• ‘The gel isn’t glamorous’ by . ‘“How was your run, Mom?”

  Me: “Great! I ate sugar for 3 hours and watched the sun come up.”

• ‘This Part of My Life Is Called…?’ by . ‘Instead of interacting with the world mainly through screens, now I’m a body in the world again’.
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘Do you have an announcement for church this Sunday?’ For most congregations, the days of a paid parish administrator are long gone. So how do we keep up with the news and the ‘communication’ of the community?

• ‘Digital Ministry Friends’. I didn’t actually write this! This is a post about an interview I did with about … digital ministry. And friends!

  
  
  
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘When the Heart Shifts’ by . ‘Then I asked her to imagine something else. God sits down beside you, looks you in the eye, and says, “I love you.”’

• ‘Three Fresh Ways to Grow Closer to God’ by . ‘As someone who thrives on routine, I can fall into the trap of engaging in spiritual habits because it’s what I always do, instead of being motivated by a desire for greater intimacy with God.’

Church stuff

• ‘The United Church of Christ Is Running Out of People—and Pastors’ by . ‘A church with fewer than 50 worshippers likely can’t afford a full-time pastor. Heck, they may even be struggling just to pay the light bill and the property insurance. And if they do manage to have a pastor who is there 40 hours a week, they are almost certainly cash-flow negative, which means they are living off reserves—which won’t last forever.’

• ‘Power of Community’ by . ‘The buildings might close, take on a new name or be bulldozed into the ground so that new life can begin. The good news of Jesus Christ, God’s love embodied here on earth, with us in the dirt, unwilling to shy away from our mess but instead offer hope, renewal and active participation in what God is up to today will not die.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘I got married two weeks ago’ by . ‘For years I used to tell people that a marriage is a miracle. I mean, how else do you explain two people—in a world of billions—finding each other and fitting together just so and then committing to each other for a lifetime?’

• ‘Two Years Ago I Quit My Life’ by . ‘When things feel uncertain and I feel anxious about how unsettled my life remains, it’s helpful to remember why I left in the first place.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘It’s faithful to believe in the death of the church’. ‘There is danger in conflating the continuation of the church itself with the insistence on a certain expression of it.’

• ‘It’s a love story’. ‘Jesus offers her what her heart really needs. not romantic love - something a million times stronger. the living water - the source of life - that is the love of God that saves us all.’

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘The Invitation’ by . ‘God doesn’t just want to “tell us what to do” because He wants to partner with us in the work of revealing His Kingdom on Earth.’

• ‘Transcendent Trust’ by . ‘The whole economy of God’s work with people is built on the simple binary word “trust”. We will all either trust God, or we won’t.’

Church stuff

• ‘Where sermons come from’ by . ‘My interrogator seemed dubious — more inclined to think preachers must shop at the Sermon Store and buy what they say on Sunday.’

• ‘Do People Think About Meaning and Purpose All the Time?’ by . ‘Engaging in regular worship is incredibly predictive of thinking about meaning and purpose on a regular basis.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘The path of least friction’ by . ‘You’re not stuck because this business is “hard.” You’re stuck because you’re solving the wrong problem, or solving the right problem with the wrong strategy, or solving the right problem at the wrong time.’ (I feel exactly like this with ministry).

• ‘My Mom Died Well - Here’s What that Taught Me’ by . ‘A good death isn’t defined in the final hours. It’s built — day by day, year by year — in the living that comes before it.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘We can’t talk about ministry without talking about money’. ‘My feelings about this are clear, and my struggles with it personally are becoming clearer.’

• ‘Hearts up! Start Here to join the gym’. ‘Here’s the truth: You can’t think your way into relationship with God. You have to participate in the relationship.’
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.

‘Good Stuff’ = blog posts I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.

Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.


Here’s this week’s roundup:

God stuff

• ‘The Cost of Getting Closer to God’ by . ‘Our whole life is an opportunity to grow in intimacy with God, and to live in worshipful response to God’.

• ‘What the Heart Wants’ by . ‘Having desires is not the problem. Our challenge is that we do not begin life knowing what truly deserves our deepest love.’

Church stuff

• ‘Studying the Past to Cure an Unacceptable Present’ by . ‘Generation by generation, Christians are forced to learn—often the hard way—that our endless patterns of wanting cannot be satiated by anything this earth has to offer.’

• ‘We had an Epiphany!’ by . ‘We would also like to issue an official apology to the liturgical season of Epiphany for sleeping on it for much of our young adult lives.’
  

Other stuff

• ‘How far back in time can you understand English?’ by . ‘Go back far enough, and English writing becomes unrecognisable. Go forward far enough and the same thing will happen, though none of us will be around to notice.’

• ‘The School of Adulting’ by . ‘One of the hidden geniuses of a healthy church body is young people learn how to be adults from men and women who have figured out a lot of things about how to live a life that matter.’
  

What I wrote this week:

• ‘This work is never finished.’ ‘I’ve grown to appreciate my own heedless optimism - my sense that of course I have endless time and energy. But of course I don’t. And I have even less when my body is revved up before I even open my eyes.’

• ‘We’re only human’. What would have happened if Adam and Eve had stayed in the Garden of Eden?… they would have gotten bored! …‘Ho-hum another day in paradise…’
  

And finally…

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.