mission – Page 2 – Delight in Disorder

Revealing Voices: Cultivating Community

Tonight (November 20), we launch our Indiegogo campaign for our upcoming podcast, Revealing Voices. My associate producer and co-host Eric Riddle and I are very enthusiastic -- not so much about the dollars collected as the number of people who will become our partners in offering hope and cultivating compassion. Many of my friends with troubled minds feel alienated by faith communities. Many of my brothers and sisters in Christ fail to understand how best to respond to people with mental illness. Our mission with Revealing Voices is to bridge the gap between faith communities and the world of mental health care in order to better promote healing. Studies show that roughly 1 in 5 persons in the US experience mental illness in a given year. Research also suggests that few churches feel equipped to respond to persons with mental illness. Added to this dillemma is that 25% of pastors struggle with [...]

Revealing Voices: Cultivating Communitytonyroberts2017-11-20T15:58:16-05:00

What Rochester Has Given Me: Grace Church (PCA)

Faith communities have been an essential aspect of my life. Since I retired from ministry, I have been blessed with two churches in particular. Columbus Reformed Presbyterian (Columbus, Indiana) and Grace Church PCA (Rochester, New York). I find it very reassuring that while I am leaving Grace PCA, I will have a spiritual family in Columbus RPC to call home. Still, there is much I am grateful for and want to celebrate with Grace. When I first showed up in Rochester, I was essentially homeless. A downtown church had paid a three-day voucher for me to stay at the Cadillac Hotel. I was grateful for the mission of this generous church, but it was not a good fit theologically or socially. I had researched PCA churches since I first read Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. I was drawn to their commitment to Biblical truth as well as Christ-centered mission. [...]

What Rochester Has Given Me: Grace Church (PCA)tonyroberts2017-06-30T14:11:58-04:00

Discovering Delight in Disorder

For almost twenty years, I served as a pastor with bipolar disorder.  I have journeyed with this illness from manic (even psychotic) peaks to dark valleys of despair.  At both extremes, I have flirted with death—coming very close to ending my life and doing great damage to those around me.  For no good reason except the mercy of the Lord, God has kept me alive, saving me from certain destruction. Yet, I have also found genuine delight in my disorder and this is the story I tell in Delight in Disorder: Ministry, Madness, Mission. How can we delight in an illness that has contributed to a divorce rate of more than 90% and leads over half of those diagnosed to attempt suicide? Countless times, when I have been driven to the edge of a cliff, God has rescued me and set me on level ground.  Why would God do this?  Because [...]

Discovering Delight in Disordertonyroberts2017-12-28T21:26:55-05:00