A Faith of Your Own: Jesus, The Christ

February 17, 2019

A few Wednesday’s ago, our Faith of Your Own Book Study topic was the images and understandings of Jesus in Scripture, throughout Church History, and a handful of contemporary theologies. It was the majority of my seminary and religious education distilled into one hour long lecture. After I finished, the room responded with various […]

A Faith of Your Own: Sources of Inspiration

February 10, 2019

“What if we read scripture like a love letter from God?” I was on the Oregon Coast with my pastor and Mentor Rev. Dr. Ken Evers-Hood. We were gathered around a drift wood fire with the high school youth group of the church that raised me. I had been hired to help lead our confirmation […]

A Faith of Your Own: The Holy Spirit

February 3, 2019

It was my first funeral as a Student Pastor, serving with Pastor Beth in South Brunswick, New Jersey. As was her practice, we gathered that cold morning to go over the order of service in her office. Soon, it was time to put on our stoles. Pastoral Stoles are an interesting wardrobe accessory; they come […]

“Our Parent’s House”

January 20, 2019

In college, I served as an intern for a High School youth group at Valley Community Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, just outside of Portland. I loved the young people I got to meet, and I appreciated the opportunity to be a safe adult they could be honest with as they faced a world that […]

Kindling the Cold Fire

January 6, 2019

The Magi, a caravan of foreign travelers, are a group of scholars and astrologers who have left their studies to journey west to Ancient Palestine. There are enough PHD’s, teachers, and librarians in this room for us as a community to know that scholarly types, they don’t leave their scrolls and laboratories easily. It takes […]

Making it Work

December 24, 2018

My first Christmas Eve as a Pastor was a disaster. I was serving as a pastoral fellow in Philadelphia, with a congregation that was known for its love for the city, especially those experiencing poverty, homelessness, and hunger. We crafted worship with and for folks who didn’t find a spiritual home anywhere else; people with […]

Magnification

December 16, 2018

I’ve started taking Tuesdays as my Sabbath, and while there’s lots of reasons why I’ve made this shift, one of the biggest is so that I can spend more time hiking. It’s my time to check-in with God. I realized recently that my prayer life has been centering a lot on important things; each of […]

“How can this be?”

December 9, 2018

“Don’t worry; God’s got your back.” Mary knows, this greeting can’t be a good sign. Gabriel could use some help on how to break difficult news. Starting with the Ancient Near East version of “now, don’t freak out,” isn’t a good look. To be fair, Gabriel has an unenviable task, inviting Mary into a new […]

Stewards of Innovation

November 25, 2018

I spent my summers during college working at Suttle Lake United Methodists Camp in Sisters, Oregon. It’s in the cascade mountains, right off the Pacific Crest Trail. Suttle lake is a beautiful Moraine Lake. It was formed when a glacier, flowing off hthe nearby Mount Washington, gouged out a shockingly deep valley, three miles […]

Stewards of Resources

November 18, 2018

Sometimes it is surprisingly simple to be the Church. It’ doesn’t cost a lot some days; a few hours, some hot cocoa mix, folks bring a few freshly picked apples, a bag of oranges, and we reuse our coloring tablecloths, a few favorite games, and a kickball. I’ve got a whole room full of […]