Have you ever gone camping? It's been a long time for me. I suspect that the thrill of sleeping on the ground under the protection of fabric, no matter how waterproof, starts to dwindle after a certain age. Camping is a tame way for us to have an adventure, among...
Reflections
Treading Water: Do fish know they’re wet?
Does a fish, living in a fish bowl, realize that there is a world just outside where creatures take in oxygen straight from the air? A place, inhospitable to a creature with gills, custom made to extract oxygen from water? The fish knows only the water around it and...
Pastor’s Book Club News
We chose to recast the Daniel Plan as a set of tools within a larger framework that we are calling Life raft. When I tell people about the Daniel Plan their mind jumps straight to dieting. Worse, they imagine a diet of vegetables, or worse, they imagine a vegan diet....
How to have more courage: The way of courage
We end our three-week, mini-series, that began with Jesus telling us to love our enemies, with the way of courage. And this week we focus on life-or-death sorts of enemies. Are we really supposed to love them too? During the first century, the Jewish people were...
Woven: Coming March 1
The Season of Lent, which begins February 26, is seven weeks long. Including the partial week that starts on a Wednesday, we count forty days until Easter. That is when we don’t count Sundays. These forty days are symbolic of the time that Jesus spent in the...
How to have more patience: The Way
We preachers frequently talk about the good news of the Gospel. And there are loads of newsworthy items to choose from in scripture as evidence. Some examples are immediate and physical, like restoring eyesight. Other good news items are relational, like the fact that...
Legends in Black History Part 2
Our African American History Heroes for this week were both pioneers in the medical field. Dr. Daniel Williams, born January 18th, 1856, and Dr. Charles Drew, born June 3rd, 1904. Dr. Williams was a general surgeon and Dr. Drew was a hematologist surgeon In 1893 Dr....
Legends in Black History
As a woman of color and a student of history, I learned that truth plus justice equals peace. Advocates of equity come in every age, race, creed, and gender. So we celebrate the men, women, and children that dared to speak out against unfairness in any form. Ruby...
Ginormous: The way of gentleness
I googled “gentleness” and found an article on the seven habits of gentle people.1 I wondered how this list compared to the seven habits of successful people. Are successful people gentle? The author made a bold claim in his title. He claims that gentleness is a sign...
The Way: Coming February 10
The Way is our next worship series. The main theme is about the gentle way of the Prince of Peace. This mini-series is a collaborative effort with Court Street Church. It is an opportunity to bring our two communities closer together in spirit. Of all the difficult...