The second most difficult thing in the world to do is to harbor anger and pain. This week, I read the story of a woman who had refused to forgive. As John van de Laar tells the story: Whenever a visitor came for a cup of tea or coffee, she would pour the drinks and…
Kenotic Words
worship, sermons, lectionary
Loving Your Neighbor…Now
(Community Worship in the Park) It is so beautiful out, and all of you look so wonderful gathered here in community. Although it takes some work to get this service together, this community worship in the park is one of my favorite services of the year. Just look around – these are our friends and…
Who, Me?
As we start off this morning, I want you to find a blank corner of your bulletin or the hymn sheet and scriptures, and I want you to write on that corner one thing that you are personally good at. What is one thing that you know how to do and do fairly well. Turn…
Hand-me-down Faith
How many of you had to wear hand me down clothes as you were growing up? One of my favorite mental images of hand me down clothes comes from my brothers. They are three years apart in age and both of them have school pictures from second grade in the exact same gray and blue…
Breaking Your Heart
For the last month or so, we have been reading Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. In prison, sick, struggling, shipwrecked, he just hasn’t had the time or resources to make it to Rome personally, so this letter contains everything that he thinks those people of faith in Rome need to know. He wants…
LIFE in the Spirit
I woke up this morning, and literally, almost, could not physically get out of bed! Yesterday, my husband and I cleaned the exterior of our cars. No… cleaned isn’t quite the right word. We scrubbed and polished and waxed and buffed our cars. And let me tell you… my car needed it. As we started…
It is SUPPOSED to be Hard
“Late in World War II a large number of American and British soldiers were languishing in a war camp deep inside Germany. Some had been there for many months. A high barbed-wire fence ran across the center of the camp, isolating the two sets of prisoners. They were not allowed to go near the fence…
understanding ritual
Today I get to co-officiate my first inter-denominational wedding. Well, that may not be completely true. There have been plenty of folks from different protestant and even different Christian backgrounds who have married under my authority. But each couple chose to go with the Methodist order and flow and style… their traditions weren’t so important,…