I have been a pastor in the United Methodist Church for over twenty years. I currently serve at Smithville United Methodist Church in Smithville, Ohio. For over ten years I have been an adjunct professor at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, teaching theology, ethics, and apologetics. I am also the Chaplain of the Smithville Police Department, as I believe that pastors should also volunteer some of their own time in service.
I did undergraduate work at Malone College in Canton, Ohio, graduate work at Ashland Theological Seminary and Duke Divinity School, and post-graduate work at Durham University in Durham, England.
I have been married for twenty-one years to Carol. We have four children: Alyssa (17), Courtney (15), Joshua and Jason (11). I have the best family in the world!
Why do you blog?
I started blogging as another way to be in ministry.
What has been your best blogging experience?
When someone sends me an e-mail wanting to share something personal after he or she has read something I have posted. I want my blogging to make a difference. When it no longer does, I will stop.
What would be your main advice to a novice blogger?
Blog frequently (minimum two to three times a week).
If you only had time to read three blogs a day, what would they be?
Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed (http://jesuscreed.org//)
Jim Martin’s A Place for the God Hungry (http://jimmartin.typepad.com/place/)
Ted Gossard’s The Community of Jesus (http://communityofjesus.blogspot.com/)
Who are your spiritual heroes?
Other than the obvious Jesus and Paul, (which everyone is supposed to say) and John Wesley (which all Methodists are supposed to say), I would list Karl Barth, Mother Theresa, and my late grandfather, Robert Mastrobuono.
What are you reading at the moment?
Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus
John Caputo, Philosophy and Theology
Eric Burns, Infamous Scribblers
What is your favorite hymn and why?
Be Thou My Vision because life is fundamentally about perception. Focus does determine reality.
Can you name a major moral, political, or intellectual issue on which you've changed your mind?
While I have always believed in the Trinity, there was a time when I did not think it an essential Christian doctrine. I have come to realize that it is the only Christian doctrine of God.
What philosophical thesis do you think is most important to combat?
The idolatrous notion that our bodies are ours to do with as we please. This is nothing more than a justification for self-worship.
If you could effect one major change in the governing of your country, what would it be?
I would like to see less government. Intrinsically, government is too unwieldy and awkward to be efficient. There have been so many things over the years that government has not accomplished, not because it has spent too little money, but because it is unable by its very nature to accomplish what we have hoped.
If you could effect one major policy change in the United Methodist Church, what would it be?
I would like to see some massive revisions made to many of our Social Principles making them more radically Christian. There is nothing uniquely Christian in simply touting the political and social platform of the DNC.
What would be your most important piece of advice about life?
Be obsessed with fulfilling the will of God.
What, if anything, do you worry about?
Actually, I worry about very little, but as most parents, I worry at times over the safety of my children.
If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything that you'd do differently?
I would waste less time and not have “blown off” my first two years in college.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do now)?
I would most like to live in North or South Carolina. I love the heat!
What do you like doing in your spare time?
I enjoy exercising very much. I also like to fish, garden, and read. (And if I had the money I would like to regularly parasail, hang-glide, kayak, white-water raft, and scuba-dive. But, alas, I don’t have any rich relatives that will leave me anything.)
What is your most treasured possession?
My family, even though I do not consider them a possession; they are a wonderful gift!
What talent would you most like to have?
I would like to have been a better athlete. I was always good enough to make the team, but not good enough to play regularly.
If you could have any three guests, past or present to dinner, who would they be?
John Wesley, John Chrysostom, and John Adams—Go figure.
1 comment:
I agree. The social principles need to reflect Christian action in our own lives.
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