Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

Creating Family Traditions – and materialism

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Aug 10, 2016 | Uncategorized |

We decommissioned the family boat this past weekend in Kirksville, Missouri, at our annual family ski weekend at Thousand Hills State Park. Laurie’s father purchased the little blue used 15 foot ski boat back in 1983, probably because he got the “boat bug” from his sister who owned a cabin on the Mississippi in Iowa – and they all skied. I came into the family in 1988. The little blue Starcraft Capri 15 footer was the only boat I ever knew. Now it’s gone, and there are waves of emotion crashing. Laurie’s folks lived in Kirksville and when we...

PokemonGo and Parenting

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Jul 20, 2016 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

“PokemonGo! Ach, what a stupid fad,” so said my recent meeting with an intelligent 50+ year-old man. Not so fast folks. There’s more here than you give credit, sir. Backstory My thirteen-year-old son and his friends wanted to go up to the church a week ago Monday. In the car, “Why do you guys want to go to Lakeland?” “To find Pokemon,” came the answer. (I’m thinking ‘wow, Pokemon – what an old-school throwback’). The new PokemonGo app is huge right now. Problem is, Hudson didn’t have a smartphone, he had an old iPad and really needed the church’s wifi....

Reading Dostoevsky And Feeling Like The Idiot

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Jul 5, 2016 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

Does anyone blog about Fyodor Dostoevsky? Nobody actually reads Dostoevsky. Too thick – literally, the books are too bullet-stopping thick. Too thick – FD’s books are classified as “philosophical and psychological.” *Yawn. But still, something calls me to read him (Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and now Crime and Punishment). Maybe it’s because many of the authors I read quote FD. But the real reason is that Dostoevsky is the master at describing the human soul. Sin, redemption, guilt, shame, violence, filth, filthy rich, desperadoes, and A-holes. His wonderfully nice characters you wish would punch somebody. And his despicable characters, which...

Adding Another Lens to See God and the World

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Jun 30, 2016 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

I believe each of us look at the world through a series of lenses: money, love life, security, Bible, white or black or (_), education, suffering, trauma – on and on. Most of us are unaware of our lenses or our “unthoughts” to quote Michel Foucault. Healthy spirituality explores our unthought lenses. My ministry work these days is helping people explore their personal lenses through which they view the world. All of our distortions and troubles, and our answers and hope come through our lenses. Over the past few years I have been studying Attachment. Attachment is a personality psychology...

Difference Between the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Apr 18, 2016 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

Last month I preached on the Apostles’ Creed in response to the old heresy of Arianism. I thought we needed some tightening up on two persistent heresies: Arianism and Gnosticism. I said that the Apostles’ Creed was developed against Arius. But Ryan Fouts, PhD candidate in theology pointed out that Arius could have agreed with the Apostles’ Creed. It was the Nicene Creed that was developed against Arius and his heresy that Jesus was not God. So I asked Ryan to tell us the difference, and here is what he wrote. I pass it along… The Apostles’ Creed and...