Wade Poe

"You're just throwing your vote away!" is often what you hear if you don't vote for the elephant or donkey. What that means is you only have two options that really count, when it comes down to it. You're crazy if you don't pick one of the two options. That's kind of the same thing that has happened with churches and religion over time. You're either a church supporter or an atheist/pagan/reprobate. If you try to say there's a different way, you're crazy. Both "sides" tell you that you're throwing your vote away. It's okay, I think. Someone has to challenge the system in order for the system to wake up. Or better said, for those who keep the system going to wake up and work for something different. It probably takes a lot of people, over time, pushing, questioning, and showing something different is possible. God's Spirit has a little something to do with all that as well. The Spirit goes where it wants. We see the effect ...

"Where will you go if you die tonight?"  "This week as we're all trying to let Jesus be the focus of our life, we surrender our..." "Let go and let God." "Share Jesus with people this week by..." "Be obedient to God in everything..." __________ Time to reflect on what something means is important for believers. It might go without saying, but I believe it's probably a critical thing now of days. Time to hear what is said and then a little more time to "get" what it means in the context of your own life and times. Usually a room full of people with no time for Q/A are rushed through a program of activities and then set loose on the world to go believe, do, and follow up on what they were, in theory, supposed to have been hearing, considering, and mentally putting away in their schedule for the coming day or week. I don't think that happens with the clarity or regularity that people imagine. We assume too much about ...

Living in the moment used to be bad according to a lot of church teaching I grew up with. It was probably because people thought that living for eternity was more important and that eternity and this moment were two completely different things.  I get it. Under the way we'd talk about God, heaven, and such, it made complete sense. Living in the moment usually assumed some kind of sinful behavior - usually sex, drugs, or listening to rock and roll. Or in my earlier years, it meant wearing shorts, playing cards, or going to the movies. Religion and church have their own language and worldview. In our group that met Sunday/yesterday, we unpacked a little of the idea of how religious systems/churches paint a picture of limited choices that you HAVE to pick from and, if you're not a little more aware of something larger, you'll believe them. __________ Churches are not the only culprit - other institutions have that thinking as well. I remember a time when private school and hom...

On the way home from picking up my youngest from the youth group he's part of, he shared what they did as a group last night. It apparently was the second night of/week of Advent where the youth group gathered with the adults that were there for one big group time to talk about Advent, sing songs, look at religious images, etc. He was curious about what all that was about. What's Advent? Why are we having to get together with all the adults and sing endless songs, listen to "interesting" talks, and so on? I explained that his congregation has relatively recently found a new freedom to talk about things their tribe kind of/sort of didn't have the freedom to talk about in years past and so they're kind of/sort doing it a lot more. We went on to talk about other details about the "church time" he had experienced and other questions that it brought up, like "Why do all the religious paintings and images from the past have a certain look to them?...

35 years ago this month, I officially began working full time for a church. I'd actually started during the months before, but the official start of a salary, a place to live, etc began December '89.   I'd begun working officially in "paid ministry" about three years prior, preaching, teaching, leading singing, etc for a small church south of Batesville and north of Searcy, just a couple miles down the road from the city center of Bradford, AR. It is amazing to leave behind a job and a career and have little to nothing to do with any of it or any of the people I was connected with before. Such a weird dynamic. But I'm okay with that. Some have asked if I had or have any regrets. Not really. I loved much of my time with many good people that God used to shape me and I'm guessing vice versa.  As mentioned in the other posts in this blog, I just got to a point where all the stuff came crashing in, theologically and relationally, and had to make a decision abo...

One of the surprising things about deconstruction and rebuilding has been the impact of what you know, mentally, actually hitting your soul square in the face for the first time. We know a lot of things to be true cognitively - like educationally or what we learn in school or what we memorize for a grade. When those things "hit home" at a deeper level, it is an emotional revelation. You simply don't know until you know and feel in ways that are bigger.  __________ I remember the first time my youngest child had a soda. He wanted to try a Sprite with his meal instead of juice or milk, etc. It wasn't a moment I was expecting to be "a moment". He sipped the cold Sprite and immediately paused, closed his eyes, and audibly, in a whispery voice said, "Aaaaaahhh" for a long time, with a very pleased look on his face. He repeated this several times during the meal, almost as if he couldn't believe it was real the first time. Some things like that for ...