I didn’t grow up in a worship tradition that included Prayers of the People. Perhaps it was because the congregation was so large that ministers and worship leaders didn’t know how to manage and plan for the time it would take for people to utter prayers before God and their community of faith. Instead I …
I was recently at my parents’s house and found my box of awards. You know the one I mean: the one that has all those participation ribbons and those good works and the more special awards, the ones you worked really hard to receive and tried to act like you didn’t care if you got …
Sometimes sermon prep rocks you to your core… There are 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space in America, or more than 7 square feet for every, man, woman and child in the country. (An American Dilemma) The official poverty rate is 14.5%, meaning 45.3 million people in the US live in poverty, up by …
I can’t help but wonder if perhaps Ben understands better than I do. When we pull aside the curtain of privilege and systematic discrimination, surely we will find the light. Light that offers challenging self-examination, light that offers hope, and light that offers healing, but not until we admit that we have been hiding behind …
I found myself running the stop sign run at my parents’ house this weekend. It’s uphill to the end of their street where a stop sign sits at the crossroads to the main road. As I tried to convince my legs and lungs that I had done this run many, many times before, I remembered the …
This Saturday as part of ministrieslab, we partnered with Resurrections that has been popping up on Saturdays in downtown Columbia to serve a midday meal for fourteen years. We knew it was going to be hot and we knew that there were going to be a lot of people in need. We also knew we …
As we have worked with the community at Transitions through ministrieslab, I have been struck by the number of times I have come to worship and have heard, “Are we having chapel? I wasn’t sure if you were coming.” At first, there was a part of me that bristled at the comment. Have I not been …
Yesterday, as we worshipped together at ministrieslab, I offered an invitation to the table. An invitation to anyone who wanted to come. I offered the same thoughts that we offer each week, “It doesn’t matter when the last time you went to church was or what church that was, God’s table is open to all.” …
I was headed home after procuring my afternoon cup of coffee from Panera, one of our ministrieslab partners when a car coming from a merge lane never slowed down. She didn’t even look before she continued her trajectory into our lane, despite the yield sign. It was a scary moment for me because I didn’t have time or …
The streetlights had not yet gone off. There were murmurings from the houses that families were waking up to go to school, to go to work, to start the day. As Willie and Waylon and I ran by, the stillness and the silence of the day surrounded us. The quiet was a stark reminder of …
