"Half a Mile a Day"

So, worship at University Lutheran Center last night was stumbling, to put it kindest.  Halting singing - unfamiliar hymns - a discombobulated delivery of the sermon - there was a general feeling of unsteadiness to the entire affair.  I say this not to denigrate our musicians, the students or myself, but just to acknowledge what was there.  As one community member put it afterwards, "Worship isn't a 'performance' but every performer knows that some nights you're just off - it happens in churches, too."

Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany - "By Whose Authority?"

            A few years ago, my brother and his wife gave me a Stephen King book on tape for Christmas.  It was an early Stephen King book, so it’s got all the subtlety of a freight train; he goes straight for the throat with blood, guts, nightmares and boogeymen.  One of the stories involves a machine at a commercial laundry that is possessed.  The main characters try to drive out the demon in “The Mangler” without success, mostly because they don’t know the kind of demon they’ve got on their hands. 

Friday Five: Odds and Ends

Sally from RevGalBlogPals has had a crazy week. Just like all of us, I suppose.  :-)  She asks what, in the past week, has:

1. Inspired you

2. Challenged you

3. Made you smile

4. Made you cross/ made you want to weep

5.Kept you going?

To Ainsley, the Day AFTER Your Fifth Birthday

Sermon for the 1st Sunday after Christmas - "At the Name of Jesus"

Simeon said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant go in peace…for my eyes have seen your salvation…”  What did Simeon see?  How is it that Simeon knew, in one instant, that something of God was at hand?

Today is the first day of a new year.  Sure, in cosmic terms there’s little difference between yesterday and today, but we begin the new year in hope all the same.  What do we see?  What are your hopes?  Your fears?  Where might God meet those hopes and fears in this place, at this time, in this life you’re living?