Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a special introduction to this year’s Advent Caroling Madness! Thank you, Jon Curtis Gemeroy! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwM6u3TMWm4] Advent is beginning, and the season of Advent was created to help us tap into the longing we have for things to be made …
Read MoreTime for Advent Caroling Madness, 2018!
We are getting close to the Christmas season, and as I already warned my family, I am ALL IN this year. So we are doing things a little differently this year, opening song nomination for all the songs NOW. The original brainstorm was 5 years …
Read MoreHadrian’s Wall
It isn’t remarkable to look at, this path I walk atop the stacked stones of Hadrian’s Wall–but it is an ancient border, an historic boundary, a demarcation of Empire. For 1900 years these stones have weathered the ebb and flow of human history. Telling the …
Read MoreSelf-reinforcing Cycles
(Content warning: description of disclosure of sexual abuse.) Her words hung there, between us, naked and vulnerable, the long years of secrecy and darkness seeming to still cling to them, weighing them down. I use hung there as a flawed metaphor; something that is so …
Read MorePursuing the Pursuing God
(Message given at Newberg Emerging Friends Church on July 15, 2018) Tonight I stand with millions of Jesus-followers throughout the centuries, joining with them to remind us that the Creator of the Universe wants to be known, and is a living, pursuing, healing, and justice-seeking …
Read MoreRisking Community
I still grieve over the pain so many feel after years of church turmoil. Uprooted, displaced, hopes raised and then dashed, confused, unsure, frustrated, angry, lost, lonely, questioning, doubting, sad, disillusioned, powerless, let down…and grieving. I’ve wrestled with whether or not to write this. I …
Read MoreThe Shape and Smell of Grace
I have a new frame, a new construct, a new living memory for what grace is. Which is extraordinary, because grace is such a cornerstone concept for people of faith. Grace is God’s orientation, relation. Grace is God’s approach to us and with us. Grace …
Read MoreChristmas Eve in New Zealand
We trickled out of our hostels and hotels, we travelers from far-flung spaces, winding our way by twos and threes and sixes to tiny St. James Anglican Church. It wasn’t until Elaine and I reached the quiet one lane highway that I realized we weren’t …
Read MoreGratefulness and Jubilee
Tonight we leave for New Zealand. Seeing those words on the screen staring back at me increases the shock and amazement already in my head. Tonight we leave for New Zealand, thanks to over a hundred of you who gave generously, to those who planned …
Read MoreMake Me Yours
From almost 15 years ago, the memory came flooding back tonight, prompted by the same song that caused the original experience. Me, standing in our kitchen, 2 am, holding our baby who was finally asleep; glasses literally fogged over, humidity off the charts because of …
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