Jul 18, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
This past Sunday we began a worship series focusing on the four words we lift up from our church vision statement that have become something of our mantra or motto: Nurture. Love. Serve. All. In a combined Sunday School class down in the fellowship hall we enjoyed...
Jun 20, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in New York on the occasion of Independence Day. While Douglass himself was free, having escaped from slavery years before, slavery was still very much the law of the...
Jun 14, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to do one of the coolest and hardest things I’ll likely ever do. I joined three other gentlemen from our church—Shaun Kell, Doug Thompson, and Troy Tarpley—in a rim-to-rim run/hike of the Grand Canyon. It’s hard to put into words...
Jun 6, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
This past Thursday, members of our pastoral staff had an opportunity to join 25-30 community leaders for a meeting with Senator John Ossoff at the Tubman Museum for African American Art, History, and Culture. We gathered in the rotunda of the museum (an impressive...
May 31, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
I was a sophomore in high school when two teenage boys killed 13 students at Columbine High School. I still remember the collective shock that something like that could have happened. It seemed to expose something ugly and deeply disturbing about us as a people, and...
May 2, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
Two of the fingers on his right hand had been broken so when he poured back into that hand it surprised him—it hurt him at first. And the whole body was too small. Imagine the sky trying to fit into a tunnel carved into a hill. He came into it...
Apr 11, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
In his beautiful book, “Telling the Truth,” Frederick Buechner writes that the gospel is “tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale,” all wrapped into one. “The gospel is bad news before it is good news,” he writes. Tragedy is that “we are sinners,” and that when we look in the...
Mar 15, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
It was almost exactly two years ago this past Sunday that our world shut down. At the church, we felt prepared. Weeks before, when we heard about this strange virus that may visit us, we had assembled a task force of church leaders, scientists, and public health...
Mar 7, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
Eastern Christianity speaks of the season of Lent as a time of “bright sadness.” It’s bright because we know the promise of resurrection waits for us on the other side. But there is nonetheless sadness because in order to see the light of Easter morning we must first...
Feb 28, 2022 | Now. Here. This.
In his introduction to the third edition of “Prayers for Private Devotions in War-Time,” a collection of prayers produced by The Memorial Church at Harvard University, Rev. Peter J. Gomes writes, “Prayer is most needed when we are most divided, and we need the...
