We're just two days away from our (very early!) departure for Haiti. It is a first for us in many ways: our congregation's first trip to Haiti, each team member's first trip there, a first mission trip for some, and my first time as lay leader. With these firsts come a variety Read More...
My boys are five years apart in age but both of them, at the age of three, loved the book, Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? Little Bear is wide awake. He is afraid of the dark. He asks his daddy for a night light. Daddy bear brings a light, then another, and Read More...
Two thousand years ago, James’ advice to the church is still pretty good: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger…” This is street theology. This advice comes from everyday living in the real world. James is not worried about the meaning of life or the doctrine of Read More...
The end is a beginning but it is not always an easy thing to face. Endings often bring confusion, sadness and pain. They symbolize loss and disorientation. Anne Lamott says that her two favorite prayers are “Help me” and “thank you.” I like that but sometimes I feel like my life gets Read More...
A few years ago we decided to renovate our kitchen and family room. As the work began we noticed a slight warping in the kitchen floor. We went under the house to see if we could diagnose the problem. Sure enough, we found a large support beam with a crack running through Read More...
The Ten Commandments seem to pop up in the culture every now and then. There have been legal and religious fights over putting them on display in a courthouse or on the lawn in front of the court or in schools or, well, whatever. It all gets rather boring. I’ve wondered, in Read More...
I practice prayer. At times I find it dull and boring. Sometimes it feels like a terrible waste of time. After all, there are emails to answer and phone calls to make and meetings to attend and memos to write. But I do it anyway because I have found that the more Read More...
Peter wrote to the early church, “rejoice in so far as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.” I do not normally put rejoice and suffering in the same sentence. But there is a serious lesson for us Read More...
This past weekend I got to go to a beautiful dance concert. The dancers were well trained, the costumes were interesting, and the music was beautiful. I love dance. I love that it’s time set aside in our lives to experience life in a whole new way by moving to music. People Read More...
Whose music are we going to listen to in the car? That is a very important question that we have to deal with when we go on mission trip every year. I spent last week with the CYF mission team in Chicago. My music tends to be a little more on the Read More...
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas writes, “The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self sacrificing love in its rituals and discipline. In that sense the visible church is Read More...
This week thinking about listening to music as a spiritual practice made me think of my friend Patrick. Patrick is possibly the silliest human being I’ve ever met. Because of Patrick there is no shortage of fun in my life. One of the best gifts that Patrick has to offer is the Read More...
I love the summer. When I was a kid summer was for playing baseball with my buddies, hanging out at the beach or just sitting around in the evening watching the Giants beat the Dodgers (that didn’t really happen very often back then). Save The long days of summer also give us Read More...
When I walked past the choir room at church the other day, Rev. David Diebold was playing some classical music (loudly…very loudly). It blows my mind that music, which was created hundreds of years ago, still speaks to me. These composers used the same musical notes that we use today and will Read More...
Summer means vacations, lots of ice tea, time at the neighborhood pool and the chance to read more than usual. Here are a few of the books on my reading list for the next three months. Disciples and the Bible, M Eugene Boring. This will be a great way to refresh my Read More...
