Picture a young woman, filling her diary with her angst. She slowly slumps against the wall and a sorrowful sigh escapes from her mouth. The journal opens, and the desperate words quickly fall from her pen: “I am now seventeen, and if some kind and …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Billy Graham
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church, March 9, 2014) Today’s person in the Cloud of Witnesses series is Billy Graham. In this series, we are looking at people who help us to fix our eyes on Jesus; people who encourage and challenge us to, as …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Daniel
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on Feb. 23, 2014) Today I would like to give you the Sparknotes version, the Reader’s Digest version of my spiritual journey from birth to age 30. Ready? Born. Rapidly conclude that if I do anything anyone thinks is …
Read MoreMillennials leaving the church is not the problem
Few things bring a bigger smile to my face than someone experiencing the rush of a surprise encounter with the Divine…when out of the mundane monotony of spiritual striving, someone drinks and breathes and comes alive, swallowed by the uncontainable power of God’s living presence. …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Gregory of Nazianzus
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on January 26, 2014) As I was thinking about this cloud of witnesses series, I wondered if some of the famous Gregorys in church history might be good ones to explore. This is me in St. Peter’s at the …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Priscilla
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on January 19, 2014) Last summer, on our huge gift of a trip to Europe, we landed in Amsterdam. We had less than 24 hours there, and were dealing with jet lag. But we made the most of it! …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: The Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on January 12, 2014) I want to let you in on a little bit of my strategy for today. I figure the only way I’m gonna get people to stop teasing me about my Christmas Eve Service blunders is …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Barnabas
(Message given January 5, 2014 at Newberg Friends Church) We live in a world where you can attend workshops on how to “build your personal brand” on social media. Everything is ranked: there’s the Fortune 500 list, a book’s sales position on Amazon, a website’s …
Read MoreAnd the all time Christmas song winner is…
After many weeks of listening and voting and trash talking, we have named a winner! It is the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, with their version of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. Thanks so much to all of you who joined in at some …
Read MoreFinal matchup!
Not much of a contest. The Benedictines of Mary with “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” almost got the shot out, and Amy Grant’s “Breath of Heaven” won without breaking much of a sweat. So, after a month, we come down to the final face off: …
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