I spent a couple days off my anxiety meds this week. It was not voluntary — a combination of not realizing I was that low until I went to refill my pill sorter, and then the time it takes for the prescription to be transferred to a new pharmacy and filled. I don’t recommend it.…

First, a note: I don’t know how other pastors have used this space, but I’m approaching it as an opportunity to share some of what has been taking up space in my mind and body and spirit each week. At times, you may find these notes dovetail with the sermon to follow on Sunday; at…

I am thinking about resistance. And because I’m me, I’m thinking about how resistance finds force and fuel through music. Now I know that not everyone connects with music in the same way, and as such this week’s column may have a more narrow audience than others. I hope there may be some relevance here…

Folks in our CBC family are being targeted in a texting scam. You may receive a text which appears to be from Pastor Michael, and has your name and asks for a favor. If you check, however, the originating phone number does not belong to him and has too many digits for a US number.…

The fact that I have been in “funeral mode” this past week means that I have also been thinking about one of my favorite modern poets — Mary Oliver, who died just six years ago. For anyone unfamiliar with her work, she wrote beautifully and powerfully about the natural world, the pain and joy of…

Just this morning, while sipping my coffee — one kid clambering on my lap and another watching a cartoon — God spoke to me. But this was not a Moses and the burning bush kind of encounter, nor that of the visions of Isaiah or John the Revelator. Nor (to be clear) was it a…

In the last five years, it has increasingly been apparent to me that whatever the vast majority of Christian churches have been doing, it has not resulted in people being formed in the image and likeness of Jesus. There’s a lot more I’m likely to say about that in the future, but this week it…

This past Sunday, I quoted from a 1957 speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., now titled “Give Us the Ballot.” I have been sitting with that particular speech for some weeks now for a variety of reasons, one of which is just how disappointed Dr. King would be to see his hopes unfulfilled. And…

In this season of getting to know one another, we are learning a lot about what gets done/needs done, how things happen, and why things happen… as well as why we individuals do what we do and care about what we care about. So while I would love to have individual conversations with anyone curious,…

In Georgia where I attended seminary, the legacy and presence of Jimmy Carter was inescapable.  Many of my colleagues made the pilgrimage to Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA, to be taught by him in Sunday School there. And as this was 20 or so years ago, President Carter was still quite active in Habitat…