I was delighted to hear Dan Church speak this past Sunday, and it’s not because I got a Sunday off! Dan shared a story he heard on NPR about a photographer who was in Ethiopia who was moved by a story of a woman named “Amazing” being helped by a man named “Grace.” (Dan’s sermon […]
Children are spiritual beings. We forget that because we tend to think of spirituality as something elevated and adult – that one achieves; we are an achievement oriented society, after all. I am no expert on human development, but I believe that spirituality like psychology needs to be considered developmentally. There are stages of faith, […]
On my way up to visit Aaron in Bellingham last Friday driving through Mount Vernon suddenly a fast approaching car fills my rear view mirror. He has been weaving through traffic and now is tailing me. I am driving 65 in the left lane, traffic is ahead so that really there is no where to […]
Did everyone see the Cheerios commercial during the Super Bowl? The world was all a Twitter about it… literally. Comments on it flooded Twitter, I’m told – not having a Twitter account – not particularly wanting one either. In the commercial a little girl is speaking with her African American father about the eminent arrival […]
What fun we had on Sunday, January 26, when we shared about being a disciple. During the sermon time we addressed the question, Who/what is a disciple of Jesus Christ? This was a follow up to our District Superintendent asking us this at our Charge Conference. I was pleased with the eager willingness of our […]
The first module discussed by our Beta Vitality Task Force was about Spiritual Disciplines, but as discussions go, it morphed into talking about sharing our faith. It was out of this discussion that we formed the Caring Committee, but a number of other ideas were extended, some of which we would like to implement, one […]
What is a Disciple? Those of you who attended our Charge Conference in December may recall that our District Superintendent, Reverend Daniel Foster asked us, “What is a disciple?” The mission statement of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. To follow that, don’t we […]
By “rule” I don’t mean rules, as in strictures and limitations but as a practice – as in the Benedictine Rule. St. Benedict was a sixth Century monk who developed a practice for the lives of monks. In addition to the basic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience it included a set of hours during […]
This is the sermon that was meant to be…. As I said this past Sunday my plan was for this to be an AMC Advent: The Walking Dead, Breaking Good and then on the 22nd the sermon title was going to be Mad Men. Here’s a brief synopsis of what I was going to say. […]
That’s what I’ve been feeling a lot of lately; that and some numbness and weakness. In October I went to the doctor and x-rays determined that I have arthritis in my neck, as well as my toes. O the joys of getting older! By the end of November the symptoms had progressed enough to get […]
