As a child, when I feel down and skinned my knee, there was nothing I wanted more than to be held in the arms of a parent. Their soothing words helped me to know that this moment of crisis was only temporary and that I would be okay. When I was a bit older, I…
Easter
Go Back Home
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! When those women showed up at the tomb on Easter morning, they didn’t know they were supposed to shout for joy. They were confused and disoriented and more than a little startled by the angel appearing before them. Christ has been…
Rising Strong: Failing and Falling
In this “Rising Strong” series, we have remembered a few things so far about what it means to live as children of the resurrection. First – we have to be ourselves. God has uniquely created us with gifts and skills and has put us in this place for this time. We shouldn’t spend our days…
Rising Strong: Go All In
You know, in churches we like to use words like repentance and transformation – all words for making radical changes in our lives. But, the truth is, the church is often the LAST place change occurs. One of my mentors often reminds me that church is often our escape from rapid change that happens in…
From Everywhere to Everywhere (2.0)
This Sunday, I was making my way back from our bi-annual Global Ministries meeting and so took the opportunity to do a brief rewrite of the message I preached at Ingathering: This quadrennium, I have the honor of serving on our General Board of Global Ministries: Last fall, in our opening worship, we read the…
Scattering Fear and Gloom
Easter Sunday is a rollercoaster of emotions. We felt that as we began worship today… instead of starting with the joy of the resurrected Christ, we began with the despair felt by Mary and the disciples because their Lord and Teacher was no longer with them. You see, for the disciples, Easter morning began with…
Tears, Comfort, and Old Hymns
This morning, our church choir shared some of the great hymns of the faith with our church in a cantata style celebration of music. Instead of our traditional Easter cantata, we picked some of our favorite hymns, our fearless leader researched their stories, and we presented a morning of lessons, messages and songs. And tears…
Blessed are the Debonair
This morning, we celebrate God’s good creation. We celebrate the gift of this world… this earth that has been placed in our care. And I’m sure you are wondering as you heard the scriptures for today and look at that sermon title… what in the world do these things have to do with creation care?…