writings and blogging reflections as they come to me. opinions are strictly my own.
Blog / Writings
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it’s been amazing to work with the incredible Amy Haynes on this Vocare Podcast which asks a simple question: where did you first experience the call to do what you’re doing now? for our latest 2 episodes (we’ve done 7 now), we turned the mic on each other. we’ve just posted my episode, here.
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Why would someone like me, drawn so deeply to that great ‘mystical’ sacrament of the church – holy communion or the eucharist – by choice, become a minister in The United Church of Canada? Regular communion has become a central part of my spiritual sojourn – drawing me toward communities who celebrate it at least…
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Originally Published In Touchstone: Theology Shaping Witness June 2025 The Great Methodist Dumpster Salvage For me, the great dumpster salvage began one afternoon when there was no one around. I surreptitiously entered the abandoned church library in a building that had, until recently, housed a once-strong United Church of Canada congregation. Knox-Wesley United[1] was the…
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The good folks at the Clowns of God ‘zine recently asked me to be interviewed for their upcoming Advent issue. Here’s what I said: Tell us about yourself! What do you spend your time doing? I’m Rob Shearer – I guess I’m a bit of a walking contradiction of being a proudly nonviolent anti-fascist anarchist…
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who gets to be more entitled? I first noticed the word being used well over a decade ago. Back then, I heard it too-often directed by older, senior management-types toward younger folks in organizations that I’ve been employed by. Entitled. These younger folk were often characterised by their elders as wanting some kind of special…
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This is a bit of a paper / presentation I wrote as part of my entry into the United Church of Canada outlining the history of radicalism (as opposed to progressivism or liberalism) in the United Church. Here’s a link to the pdf of the presentation.
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this letter was posted by Sarah Provan (scroll down on linke to see bio) a young(er) person who works in youth ministry in the United Church on Vancouver Island and across BC/Yukon. Her letter was shared to social media in September 2025. I share it here, with her permission – with my response to follow…
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A version of this piece originally appeared in 2023 in Creating Conversation – a weekly editorial, curated by the Centre for Missional Leadership (CML), Years ago, a Buddhist friend of mind told me about Buddhist death meditation, the practice of imagining one’s own death – step-by-step – which includes spending extended times on nine fairly descriptive (and…
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This was originally posted in 2023 on the AbbeyChurch blog. For some more images of these Abbeys that I took, please see the gallery on their website here. The pretense for this trip is that I’m turning 50 in about a month. I have long been an admirer of the witness of traditional monastic communities –…