I had an epiphany in our Lenten Study. [Are epiphanies allowed during Lent? Even after 19+ years working at Woodridge United Methodist Church, I still get confused about ecclesial particularities like the seasons of the church year. Which seems silly. I've now been working and worshiping in the UMC longer than I attended the American …
Category: Faith
Welcome to Parable Club
This Sunday, March 1, through Easter at Woodridge UMC, Pastor Danita and I are preaching a sermon series, The Parables of Lent (aka #ParablesofLent when you tweet, post, & pic about it each week 😉 ). We decided we needed a group effort of some kind in order to help us navigate these tricky stories …
On message
What lessons are our young people learning from us? In what ways are we teaching and sharing the messages they receive? That video has been making the rounds across the interwebs lately. It's an incredible performance and a stark reminder that our children and youth are extremely perceptive and they see and hear things we …
I like you and nothing more #StayWokeAdvent
Like John so long ago, and Isaiah even before that, the voice came to me out of the wilderness. (You know, for values of 'wilderness' that include 'bouncing off a few cell towers.') "Hey Pastor Dave, we should play 'Nothing More' in church sometime soon. With all the horrible things in the news lately, it's …
Continue reading I like you and nothing more #StayWokeAdvent
#StayWokeAdvent
That racism exists in our world, in our country, in our community, in our systems - social, economic, and political - is irrefutable. But as a middle-aged, middle-income, able-bodied, cis-gendered, straight, white, Christian, male, layers of privilege afford me the possibility - the comfort - of not noticing that racism. Or, if I do notice …
New parables?
My task this week is to tackle some of those most mysterious teachings of Jesus that we usually call parables. In particular, parables about what the author of Matthew's gospel calls the Kingdom of God Heaven. Why 'Heaven' instead of 'God'? Most likely the author was Jewish or was writing for a Jewish audience or …
Remembering Grandma Ruth
To paraphrase Winston Zeddemore, when someone asks you to officiate a wedding in Hawaii, you say YES! And you bring your spouse and kids. Especially when it is for friends. So I was on a working vacation with my family last week when word came that Grandma Ruth died. The funeral service would be before we …
#BringBackOurGirls
Human trafficking. Dehumanization and abuse of women and girls. Intertwined roots in execrable theology. That, dear reader, is a hat trick of blog post subjects for me if ever there was one. I determined I would write a post on the 270 kidnapped Nigerian school girls and the global response, hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. I had the …
Death, where is thy sting? Here.
Note: I wrote this for my church blog, but thought it might resonate outside of those circles as well. Mom. Dad. Grandma. Poppa. Sister. Brother. Wife. Husband. Aunt. Uncle. Daughter. Son. Friend. These are some of the names given those who died recently. It has been a difficult week in the life of our church …
The Gospel According to Thor #sermon
You might think that putting up a sermon is the easiest kind of post. I mean, really, the content is already created, how hard could it be? Yet, somehow, it never ends up being that easy for me. Once again, here it is Thursday and I'm just now posting my sermon from this past Sunday …
All That I Can't Leave Unsaid 