One of the hardest aspects of the Lenten season is to the constant reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return. As a preacher, I welcome the times in the church calendar like now where scripture lends itself to the promise and hope of resurrection and will come again. For some, the …
We’ve walked in darkness for the last 40 day. We’ve longed and hoped for light. But here we sit – in the darkness, in the hopelessness, in the disappointment. I didn’t understand this part for so long. Perhaps I don’t even really understand it now. I was taught Good Friday was good because …
I’ve always found it a bit unsettling that the season of Lent coincides with beautiful Spring days like today in the South. While the physical world is beckoning for us to come out and see evidence of new life and the signs that Spring is coming, the spiritual world is calling for us to come …
Have you ever been in a meeting talking about someone only to have them walk into the same place where you are sitting? Have you watched a rose bush bloom for the first time this season just as Holy Week? Have you walked into a store and heard one of your favorite songs just beginning? …
I didn’t grow up in a baptist tradition where the ministers robed. I knew it was a part of other faith traditions. I knew there was a rich history of why clergy robed and that it was a way to distinguish the person as a person who was not only trustworthy, but also a servant …
Three years ago during the Lenten Season, I felt such strong compassion for a bush in our yard that was being strangled by weeds. I could tell the weeds had so entangled this bush that the weed was literally taking the life from the bush. There were no blooms on the bush, but only dead …
Last week was full to the brim with responsibilities from all the different things I do for “work”: pastor, freelance writer, publisher, and part-time employee at Lutheran Seminary. It doesn’t usually happen like this. Usually the different vocations don’t collide into each other, but this week they did. Thankfully, I had help from my incredible …
This Wednesday during our weekly chapel service at Transitions, we observed Maundy Thursday. We washed hands and took communion with the youth of New Hope Christian Fellowship and as we fellowshipped, we remembered the night Jesus supped with his disciples and gave them instructions to remember. Last night we gathered at New Hope to observe Maundy …
I can remember where it started. I was sitting in the back of a classroom at Gardner-Webb School of Divinity. I was in my first year of seminary, and I was hanging tightly to the friendships I had made during orientation. We were far enough into the semester that we had gotten past our surface-level …
As a part of the Lenten season, we have included a prayer of confession as part of our worship service reminding ourselves that we are dust and to dust we shall return: ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have done wrong, and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed the desires of …
