Dave Buerstetta on striving to do justice and love others while walking humbly with God
Growing up in the '70s and '80s in a family that was actively involved in a Baptist* congregation meant going to church on Wednesdays as well as Sundays. *Important distinction: ours was (well, still is) an American Baptist church, not part of the Southern Baptist Convention. We may have been White evangelicals (though we never …
This past Sunday, our son and I simultaneously arrived at our driveway from opposite directions. I, returning from church. He, from baseball practice. Our conversation went something like this:Him: How was church?Me: Good! The band played for the first time in a while and sounded great! We had a good crowd, including some folks we …
Previously on All I Can’t Leave Unsaid… “Take care of your blog,” Robin Rendle wrote. “Blogging changed my life,” my friend Hugh Hollowell, Jr. wrote in a recent newsletter. Inspired by them I’ve returned to this space… one two three and a half weeks later I’m still trying to get this post up. Ugh. Such is life here at All …
Here in the Chicago area where I live, we had a glorious spring season -- for about three days. Sunshine, temps approaching (even surpassing) 70 degrees, all kinds of people outside working and walking, grilling and chilling. We have to get it in when we can. Then there’s all the garden talk: What are you …
How can a small local congregation respond to a war on the other side of the globe? I don't know for sure, but that is, in part, what I tried to explore in this sermon. The good people of Woodridge United Methodist Church have previously taken bold action in opposition to the USA invasion war …
I'm just skating right past my failure at producing posts on the regular this month and just going with a flurry of activity. Hope you'll bear with me as I think there are at least a couple decent nuggets of goodness to be found. I got to preach the first and last Sundays of Advent, …
I know many of you, many of us, need to be reminded of God’s love today. We need to be reminded of God’s love today because this pandemic has put us through so much — is putting us through so much. It is not over yet and we must continue to wear masks and keep …
How many times have you read or seen or heard the story of Jesus’ last week? Dozens? 50? Hundreds of times?Whatever your answer to that, it is a well-known story. Many of us can likely quote all the lines (as it were) from beginning to end — this year from the gospel of Mark. So …
What happens when we start with a (near) universally beloved scripture verse — quite possibly the most famous verse of all time — and add a story that can only be described as bizarre, disturbing, and kinda icky??What happens? Exactly what you think would happen: people stop being polite and start getting real. As in, …
I had to repeatedly reminded myself that this is not Jorie's memorial service. I wrote recently about my turn to preach coming up the same time as a fair number of significant events. But this week was different because our colleague, our teammate, our friend, our sister in Christ, Jorie died suddenly. In those previous …
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All That I Can't Leave Unsaid 