Make your holiday a happy one. Based on my experience and extensive research, here are the top 10 questions to avoid this Thanksgiving Day. So, who did you vote for? When are you two getting married?When are you gonna have a kid/another kid or when are you gonna stop having kids? (basically stay away from all talk of people's sex lives and reproductive choices)Do you have a job yet?How can you ...
Read More
My friend and colleague, Rev. Kelly Fitzgerald, and I have put together a FREE resource for families to use at home this Advent, and here's five reasons I'm excited about it. It's Not a To-Do List This is a not a devotion-a-day resource where you have to commit to gathering your family together in the same place at the same time every day while you read and reflect on scripture ...
Read More
It’s no accident that Reformation Day and Halloween fall on the same day. It was actually by design. The 31st of October was the night before All Saints Day and came to be known as All Hallows Eve—the origin of our Halloween. It was a time when people were particularly focused on remembering their loved ones who had died—and being worried about their loved one’s souls. Early on in the life of ...
Read More
You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don’t let this freedom be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love. Galatians 5:13 If you follow me at all you know that my unofficial tagline is: a faith that struggles with questions is always stronger than one that never asks any. Did you realize that our national anthem—the one that’s so hard to sing—ends in a ...
Read More
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4eAitdqpo0GjlsaliGL5Vg?si=ae02d7a935a14a2e Here we get our first glimpse of the disciples gathered together after the resurrection. All in all, not a very pretty picture. Near the end of his life, Jesus had carefully prepared his disciples to be a devoted and confident fellowship of faith. They were to be a community of love whose doors were always open and the welcome mat always out, but here we find them barricaded in a ...
Read More
Friends, Easter is not one day. It's an entire season. Eastertide runs from Easter Sunday through Pentecost, so we have plenty of time to celebrate, access and revel in the new life that is ours through the risen Christ. I believe in Easter. I believe in the Resurrection and the Life. I believe that God loved us enough to become one of us, to walk among us, to die for us and ...
Read More
Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb, bringing the fragrant spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 They didn’t know what to make of this. Suddenly, two men were standing beside them in gleaming bright clothing. 5 The women were frightened and bowed their ...
Read More
It's Epiphany! The day that we celebrate the mysterious wise men who come from the East to visit the Baby Jesus. Herod tries to trick them into revealing the location of this baby whom he believes threatens his empire, but we know that the wisemen were warned in a dream to avoid Herod and go home by another way. That must have taken some courage. After all, they could have ...
Read More
At Christmas, we get all caught up with the great story of the star and the shepherds and the inn with now room and the baby born in a barn. We forget about those people who were waiting. The ones who were so desperately waiting for the messiah. We forget how tangible the expectation was for the messiah to come. Anna and Simeon were just two of the people ...
Read More
It's Gaudate Sunday, when we light the candle of Joy. It is traditionally the Sunday that we celebrate Mary's response to the news that she is going to carry the child of God. Gaudate is Latin for rejoice. It's a good time to remember that if Mary can recognize God's blessings in the midst of finding out that she's an unwed pregnant teenager in an age where they could ...
Read More