It says something about our church when, last weekend, as our children and youth took control of our 9:15 and 11:15 am services the youth speakers gave a powerful testimony to the love, acceptance and care that has been modeled for them by our family of faith. If you weren’t there, it was a pretty…
Details
This week I’ll be traveling to San Francisco as part of the Next Generation Leadership Initiative, a clergy leadership program I’m part of. One of the things I’ll be doing with my colleagues is attending a Maker Faire. (If you’ve never heard of one, you can check it out here: http://makerfaire.com/) As the website explains,…
Details
There is a fabulous verse in the book of Philippians that says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!” The apostle Paul seems to be encouraging his friends in the Philippian congregation to reconnect to gratitude and to remember their sense of blessedness– a Rejoice Reboot! Recently I read an article in…
Details
My friend David Hackett stopped by the office today, to briefly ponder the modern day dilemma of chronic screen-time. And on his way out, he directed me to a youtube video I had to check out. Ironic, no? And yet, with this simple link, and these 9 minutes and 22 seconds, I am feeling a…
Details
On Sunday, May 1, our Board of Parish Ministry invites us to worship services centered in the theme, The Wisdom of Flowers. The structure of the service is Unitarian Universalist in its origins and often called a “Flower Communion,” because of its intention to provide ritual that is inclusive of all and celebrates connection to…
Details
It’s time to lace up those travelling shoes again and get ready to hit the road. It’s time to pack up the van and get ready to head on down to Warren Willis Camp for yet another installment of the All Church Retreat. And this is a trip that I look forward to all year.…
Details
Part of our responsibility and opportunity as a spiritual community is to nurture health and wholeness for our congregation and our community. All of us are individuals who live with considerable challenges of all kinds. And as well, the resiliency of each of us is enhanced when we know we are not alone in the…
Details
Sabbath doesn’t always bring rest. And Easter doesn’t always remind me of resurrection. Sometimes, the message of Easter is simply, “endure.” Not the most hope-filled word, I know. But sometimes, it is all we can do. It was hard not to draw correlations between the death of 16-year-old Robert Dentmond and the death of Jesus,…
Details
Like many of you, I’ve been heartbroken this week. It is hard to imagine Easter arriving by Sunday, but I was also reminded that heartbreak is our natural companion during Holy Week. Any words I could offer feel inadequate, but silence too seems insufficient. I was reading the traditional seven last words of Christ, which…
Details
When I lived in Honduras, the streets of the town would be decorated for Semana Santa, Holy Week. The long street up to the cathedral door was impossibly pocked with holes and rocks, and in the rainy season, normally sloshed with mud. But for Palm Sunday, it was transformed by the creation of alfombras or…
Details
Supposedly Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote his book, Between the World and Me for his son. But I’m not sure that’s accurate. In fact, I’m pretty sure he wrote it for me. As I look back through my copy of Between the World and Me I can’t help but notice that I had underlined significant passages on…
Details
In the fall we completed an All-Church Survey that helped to discern three priorities the congregation has for the direction of our life together over the next three years. Those priorities named by UCG respondents to the Survey had to do with justice action around race, poverty, and the environment; care and nurture of the…
Details