Articles by Steve Woolley

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Time and space in Mark

Sep 07, 2012 by Steve Woolley

Mark has been a constant puzzle to me. I didn’t much care for it for a long time. His sense of urgency and spareness of narrative left me feeling I was reading the Cliff Notes of scripture. That began to change a few years ago when I took a hard look at whether Mark was as immediately this and immediately that as I assumed.

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So where is the line?

Apr 13, 2012 by Steve Woolley

This is an article about worship in traditions other than one’s own, but it begins with CPE. Most clergy have benefitted from, or endured, at least one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) during their seminary years. It’s a form of onsite practical education, most often in a hospital, in pastoral counseling. I don’t know what the curriculum is like these days.

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What are supply clergy?

Jan 05, 2012 by Steve Woolley

What are supply clergy? Are they merely ordained persons who are authorized to use the costume, magic words and hand motions needed to legitimize  an hour of worship while the life of the congregation goes along without them quite well, thank you very much?

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I'd love to tell the story, but I don't know it

Nov 07, 2011 by Steve Woolley

Once again, while at an ecumenical clergy gathering, I heard the call for the Church to become missional, this time from a Presbyterian.

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Retired pastors as members

Jul 11, 2011 by Steve Woolley

This last Saturday and Sunday I celebrated at the parish from which I retired three and a half years ago.  The rector was away at camp, and his normal sources of backup were  otherwise engaged.  I imagine it took some courage on his part to even ask me.  To tell the truth, I was a little nervous about it too.  Things are done differently now.  The Satur

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He is risen? Who cares!

Apr 19, 2011 by Steve Woolley

Interesting conversation in our Tuesday morning lectionary group.  It began with the usual quandary about how best to preach to those who come only once or twice a year. One of our group enthused about how when they hear that Jesus rose from the dead it will, or at least can, change their lives forever.  He's seen it happen.

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The endurance of rural congregations

Dec 06, 2010 by Steve Woolley

The little rural church I serve, along with two other retired clergy, has two dozen members, if you carefully count everyone whether there or not.  No one is young.  The church growth gang (now called church transformation) calls it a declining and dying congregation.  The thing is, it's been there for over a hundred years and has never had more than a couple dozen me

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The enemy of spirituality

Nov 18, 2010 by Steve Woolley

Spiritual but not religious. Good Grief! Not that again. How often do we have to go over that ground?

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Inventing God

Nov 04, 2010 by Steve Woolley

I have a friend who washes windows for a living.  I don't know what he used to do.  According to him he raised horses, made a lot of money, owned everything he wanted and drank heavily.  He more or less stumbled into Jesus through an introduction from another friend of mine, an Adventist pastor.  Now he and Jesus are tight, he's been sober for five or six years, and he