by rg7878 | Jul 7, 2025 | Uncategorized
The content of this episode is excerpted from my retreat addressing what I call “off-script kids.” I explained this in a post a few weeks ago. The retreat is linked in the show notes. Parents of off-script kids carry many different emotions. But what they should not...
by rg7878 | Jun 30, 2025 | Uncategorized
Ordinarily you only hear me on these episodes. But periodically I like to drop into the mix longer conversations with men and women who have insight into pastoral well-being or practice. Rainy Day People are, as suggested by Gordon Lightfoot’s song of that name, those...
by rg7878 | Jun 23, 2025 | Uncategorized
Inasmuch as the title and conceit of this podcast and the newsletter on which it is based is drawn from the allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, I trust you will allow me occasional flights of fancy, such as is this one. Is it a dream? I’m not sure. I have been pondering,...
by rg7878 | Jun 9, 2025 | Uncategorized
If you are a pastor, you could probably list thirty-two things that ministry requires that you don’t believe you are good at. We are harsh self critics. But what if we need to be just “okay” at these things? What if it is enough to be “good enough?” What if the...
by rg7878 | Jun 2, 2025 | Uncategorized
Many of you may know that one of my concerns has been and is the guilt and shame of parents whose adult children have made choices troubling to their parents. This sends many parents into an emotional free fall, and often they are in churches where this common...
by rg7878 | May 26, 2025 | Uncategorized
In the U. S., today is Memorial Day, a day for remembering those who have given their lives on behalf of their country. I have distinct memories of, as a child, visiting a cemetery on this day and listening to the sound of taps being played, the bugle in the distance...
by rg7878 | May 19, 2025 | Uncategorized
Hello! Welcome to this unusual, audio only, third Monday edition of Greatheart’s Table. This is the third and last of our Rainy Day Conversation with my two friends, Adam and Byron discussing books. And though our initial focus was on pastoral reading habits, all of...
by rg7878 | May 12, 2025 | Uncategorized
Pastors are always having to decide what to do. In our day of political turmoil, especially, touching as it does on a plethora of deeply meaningful moral concerns many of us feel that we need to do something, and if we don’t, our parishioners as well as internet...
by rg7878 | May 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
The following episode was first aired in September of 2021. The frustration, hopelessness, and caution, it touches upon remain relevant today for pastors and others. We are urged to do something! We are told to act! But what does that mean? What are we to do? What can...
by rg7878 | Apr 28, 2025 | Uncategorized
Hello. I’m Randy, and I pastor a small church. That, of course, is meant to sound like the stereotyped introduction of an AA meeting. But this is not an admission that this idea of “Small Church Thinking” which has occupied us recently arises from my being...
