Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday

Sermon for Pentecost, Year C - "Fire and Works and [Sometimes] Fireworks"

Sermon for Easter 6, Year C - Unity

The Small Moments That Change Everything

20 years ago, I was a college freshman working in the snack bar of one of the dorms at the University of Nebraska. I didn't have a job for the summer and was getting nervous. One night, my co-worker Brigette's boyfriend Mike wandered down to walk her home after we closed. He was wearing the staff shirt of the Lutheran camp I had attended as a kid. I told him I'd been a camper there and always thought maybe it would be fun to be a counselor. He handed me a business card for the camp and told me to call them, since they were still looking for male counselors. 

I hadn't been to church since arriving on campus. I didn't think a lot about faith. I was going to be a band director and maybe get a job playing in a symphony on the side. But thanks to a chance conversation with the boyfriend of an acquaintance, my entire life changed. (Said acquaintance is now a friend, and also an ELCA pastor, but at the time we weren't anything more than co-workers. Love ya, Brigette!)

So, I asked my colleagues:  what are the small changes that led you to where you are now?  Here are the answers from those folks who’ve responded.

2013 Book List: May Update

Here's the list of books I've read in 2013, updated monthly, for fun or for some sort of edification, professional or otherwise. Recommended titles are in bold, and formats are +(Kindle/eBook), *(audio/iPod).