Praying is hard. We often pray corporately in worship, personally out of a plea for pain or worry to pass, intercession for others, in lament for loved ones or tragedies, and sometimes selfishly in bargaining or in a wishing manner. As people of faith, we know prayer...
Happy Fourth of July! I hope each of you were able to relax and enjoy time with family and friends this past weekend. I am curious if you knew that we have at least 62 U.S. Veterans in our congregation? No matter your political convictions, I think Independence Day is...
I am writing this from a coffee house that didn’t exist three years ago. It used to be a pizza place. I used to eat lunch here all the time in high school. It is one of the only places a student could walk to during open campus lunch and still make it back for...
This is an exciting summer for track and field fans like me. The Olympic Trials are going on now in Eugene, Oregon, and the Olympics will be in August. Athletes at the very peak of performance are also at the very razor’s edge of injury. All elite runners,...
This spring I was visiting a local nursery where I enjoy purchasing plants and struck up a conversation with one of the employees. We were sharing stories of what was growing well in the vegetable and flower gardens this year and I happened to mention that my...
What a gift it has been to see many of you in person, in worship. My gratitude for the many people who make worship a reality week to week overflows: our housekeeping and maintenance staff, the ushers, the audio and visual technicians, the musicians and singers, the...
One of my favorite things to do in Youth Ministry is write curriculum. It gives me a chance to get my brain working and forces me to re-read chunks of the Bible (a spiritually healthy thing to do, I hear). And for this curriculum I read the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew...
Nostalgic moments seem to dominate my mind these days. I just returned from time with my New Orleans family. I received the gift of a new book. It is called Welcome Corner: A New History of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church. Written by the recently retired senior...
” ‘Appropriating’ seems to have the same stress put on it in relating the individual to the world through the ownership of property as ‘belief ‘ has in relating the individual to the world through the acquisition and power of knowledge.’” –Stanley...
