It is relatively common in churches to talk about gifts. We talk about spiritual gifts like those mentioned in Romans 12 (as one example). We talk about gifts in terms of cultivated talents like musical prowess or public speaking. We talk about gifts in terms of financial contributions. We even talk about the gift of…

On my father’s side of the family, my people hail from West Virginia. Due to information not being passed on before the death of elders and the burning of a church that held all the family records, that is a bit of a genealogical dead end otherwise. My grandfather grew up on a mountain in…

At the close of Sunday’s service, I picked up a guitar and played a version of Psalm 23 by Trevor Morgan. I’ve long found its melody had a kind of haunting beauty to it, and Trevor Morgan doesn’t get the play on the radio that he deserves as a musician and artist. While I anticipated…

It was only when I was in college — after having quite literally grown up in a local church! — that I first encountered the expansive history of Christianity and its rich and layered traditions of spiritual inquiry and discipline. As you might expect, these discoveries and experiences kindled within me a variety of emotions.…

Who are you? Alice, it seems, is not done with us yet…… or else the Spirit is manifesting as the Caterpillar and persistently, annoyingly blowing her frankincense-scented smoke rings at us to hold us in this space of self-discovery a little longer. Who are you? Whilst reading in Revelation, thinking about Jesus, and reflecting on…

As a pastor, I like to play around with the order of worship. I don’t ascribe to change for the sake of change, but there are good reasons to adapt the order from time to time. Looking back over the years, I realize I’ve almost always adopted a seasonal approach to this, giving consideration to…

These past weeks, I have been deeply immersed in the final days of the earthy life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on this day in 1968. Some of that investment is of course due to the service we are holding tonight at 7:00pm, but much is also because his prophetic voice…

Alice got left out of this past Sunday’s sermon, an unfortunate casualty of the cutting room but one that ultimately resulted in a more cohesive sermon. But that omission drives me to include some ruminations that are not likely to fit anywhere else. Most of us are familiar with the Cheshire Cat’s famous line: “We’re…

It slipped by without my realizing it — the two-month mark. Only yesterday, while in conversation with another local clergy-person, did it occur to me that this past Sunday marked our second full month of Sundays together. Time has gone so quickly… and so slowly… somehow simultaneously. I’m embarrassed to admit how much remains in boxes. Those…

March proves transient, especially where the weather is concerned. “In like a lion; out like a lamb,” the voices of old recite, and yet neither they nor we are so naive as to assume any sort of linearity. This may be March’s curse — and gift — this erratic and unpredictable nature to its weather.…