By Eddie Pipkin On my run last Saturday morning, just as the sun was coming up and just as I rounded the corner from my street to the next, there at the end of a driveway, adjacent to the sidewalk, was an unexpected treat. A free pineapple! Not just any old pineapple, but obviously a [...]
By Eddie Pipkin It’s pumpkin patch season for lots of churches! Ah, those acres of orange glory, picked over by delirious kids (who insist on only the plumpest pumpkins) and their perfect-photo-seeking parents (who keep asking, “Is this pumpkin really THIS much?). I worked my first church pumpkin patch in 1987 and have volunteered at [...]
By Eddie Pipkin I got a kick out of this sight on the side of the road in my neighborhood. I mean, what exactly is going on here? Is somebody throwing away a perfectly good Happy Birthday balloon? Is there an imminent birthday party that is being obscured by a row of trash cans? Is [...]
(Long Live Pub Group) By Eddie Pipkin Ah, let us pause to memorialize those innovative church ideas that did not survive the pandemic. For instance, pub group. Pub groups, for churches seeking to be relevant, were the cutting edge rage five or six years ago. Folks would gather in a non-threatening space to trade ideas, [...]
By Eddie Pipkin A couple of months ago, I received a humbling lesson in not jumping to conclusions. I was reading the sports page and encountered the article announcing that the Cleveland Indians, after years of wrestling with whether to change their name to something less offensive to Native Americans, had settled on the appellation, [...]
By Eddie Pipkin When I was backpacking this summer, I took along a newbie, my nephew who just graduated from high school. This nephew had never done any backpacking before – in fact, he had never done any tent camping. His family had camped a lot, but always with a pop-up camper in an official [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Change happens. It’s one of the few certainties in life and ministry. Often change desperately needs to happen. We become stuck in a rut, and the only way forward to renewal is by acting out a new script. Even so, there are healthy ways to embrace change that invite everyone to be [...]
By Eddie Pipkin In my recent beachside travels, I was staying in a rental house with friends. Thisneighborhood had been around for decades. It began as a collection of modest cottages – a beach getaway for working class folks. But in recent years, some high-end developments have moved in down the road, and now the [...]
By Eddie Pipkin I am hanging out in the Florida Panhandle this week, and I’m doing my daily runs on unfamiliar roads, which I really enjoy. In fact, these roads are clay/sand roads, shaded by live oaks – a real Old Florida vibe, which I also love. Only, with all the summer rains, I’ve had [...]
By Eddie Pipkin I received an email in response to last week’s blog, “The Twisties,” which expressed disappointment in my take on the topic. The writer understood my interest in promoting mental health ministries for local churches but lamented the lack of guidance for leaders who are finding themselves in the grip of The Twisties [...]
