Merianna Harrelson

I am the Pastor of Garden of Grace United Church of Christ in Columbia, SC and the Director of Consulting at Harrelson.Co. I am always looking for a good cup of coffee and a great book.

It’s Missing!

Recently, Buzzfeed released an article entitled “27 Sure Signs You Grew Up Evangelical.” I can identify with all 27. I know there are other people who can’t identify with even one, but as I was reminded about Psalty and Adventures in Odyssey, I was reminded of one of the Psalty tapes I listened to growing …

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One Child

One of the aspects of my congregation that I love the most is that we are constantly exchange things: food, coupons, clothes, and books. There’s nothing better for a reader like me to walk into church and be handed a new book with a great recommendation. Which is how I ended up with One Child. …

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Realignment

There’s always this point when you are breaking in new shoes that you start running and you know that the realignment process is complete. If you haven’t run a lot, you might be fooled into thinking that if you have bad shoes and replace those shoes, then you are not going to experience pain anymore. …

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Sometimes I forget…

that my experience as a teacher and more specifically as a reading specialist might be a central part of my ministry. Because I was a public school teacher, I had trained myself to show my faith in encouraging families and working hard to provide a quality education to children in poverty and in at risk …

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Waiting to Clean Up

After we have a weekend with the girls, there’s always a period of time I wait before cleaning up their weekend fun. There’s something about peeking into the “school” that LC created to teach Sofia the First and hearing her voice again in my memory that makes our time together last longer. There’s something about …

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Carrying the Cross

As a teacher, I got used to carrying things in the back of my car pertaining to teaching: books, materials for science experiments, math manipulatives, etc. This wasn’t uncommon or strange, in fact after school you could often find a switch going on from one teacher’s car to another teacher’s as materials were shared back …

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