Shea Zellweger's Blog, page 5

Sitting This One Out

Ferguson.
New York City.
Cleveland.
Phoenix.
Tulsa.
Baltimore.

Keeping half an eye on the news over the last nine months has all but guaranteed you will know what these six cities have in common: unarmed Black men (and children!) dying at the hands of the police. Protests. Rioting. #BlackLivesMatter. The National Guard. Civil Rights Investigations. Most of all, a nation divided over who is right and who is wrong; who are the innocent ones fearing for their lives, and who are the instigators of trou...

Painting David

This morning, the kids at the church where I work will be finishing a month of Sunday School lessons on the life of David. The lessons in the curriculum cover many important events in the life of David; the way he defended his sheep, his battle with Goliath, his anointing by Samuel, and his coronation, to be specific.

I hand-selected this curriculum, choosing it over all of the alternatives because I truly believe it is the best on the market. So much so that I just provided a link to the curr...

Now Farewell, League

"Football is Big Tobacco, except someone else does the smoking for you."
-Bruce Arthur on Q Sports Panel, 9/15

This has been a summer of giving up bad habits for me, and it's time to kick another addiction: Football.

Goodbye, NFL. It's not me. It is most definitely you. There are a million reasons I could cite for this departure, but at the heart of it is the fact that at every turn, the business known as the National Football League proves itself to be the epitome of a corrupt, soulless corpora...

A Supreme Decision

Dear Justices of the Supreme Court,
Thank you. Your decision yesterday was a monumental step forward for the people of America. It's just too bad that the bipartisan rhetoric surrounding the outcome of the Hobby Lobby case has completely missed the point. You see, all the Crazy Liberals out there are trying to make this a crushing blow to women's rights, and all the Conservative Whack Jobs are claiming its a landmark decision in favor of religious liberty. Don't worry, I know it's neither of t...

Where I (Used To) Stand

Once upon a time, I thought being gay was absolutely wrong. I grew out of that.

I matured, and realized that there was nothing wrong with being gay, but I was still certain that acting on one's gay desires was sin. I grew out of that, too.

I came to realize that my separation of orientation and action was selfish, wrongheaded, and ultimately self-defeating. But even more than that, it was unnatural. Everywhere that Scripture spoke against homosexuality, it spoke against people going agains...

Losing Faith, Finding God V: Congregation

Six months.
Six months is all it took to transform me from a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new pastor with boundless optimism for his new position, to a nervous wreck who became physically ill each Sunday morning.

I had come to this church that was desperate for a turnaround. There were seven people who regularly attended, and the youngest of the lot was in her late 50s. During the interview process, they had talked about the need to change their identity in order to be more welcoming to a new gene...

Losing Faith, Finding God IV: Completion

I stand in the back of the line, like always. This is graduation day, and as with any other formal event, the organizers have arranged us alphabetically; Zellwegers to the back of the bus, please. We file in to the auditorium/sanctuary of the large church which is letting us use its space for the occasion, I find my seat, and the ceremony begins.

It's been years since I enjoyed any sort of pomp and circumstance- the last time was probably seventh grade, when I first spent hours practicing Pomp...