The season of Lent began this week with Ash Wednesday. Lent, a forty day journey with Jesus, is a time of preparation. During this time we make space to pause, reflect, strengthen ourselves for the journey to come. This time of space comes to a climax with the events of Holy Week, and finds it’s…
Category: Pastoring
Another Path
This is an edited manuscript of my sermon for February 15, 2015. It’s based off of Luke 8:26–39 As we come to the end of our Journey towards Lent we meet Jesus as he sails into Gentile territory. I have to say, if TV was around back in the first century, this story would probably…
Practical Traps
I was “at work” 1 the other day and had a sudden realization. Many of my co-workers don’t know me very well. This came as quite a shock to me. I’m friendly with everyone there, but in a lot of ways I feel I’ve been cast into the “computer guy” role so deeply that people…
Shown Up
This is an edited manuscript of my sermon on Luke 14:1–6 for February 8, 2015. Today in Luke we join the story as the Pharisees were getting ready to examine Jesus. They wanted to see what this guy was all about. Jesus, after all, had a growing reputation and they probably wanted to see if…
A time to build
For the last several years the church I pastor, Central Baptist Church of Riverton-Palmyra 1, has been in a bit of a holding pattern. We became increasingly aware that our organizational structure was not only non-functional, it was actually serving to take energy from the congregation. Central was a organizational vampire which folks both loved…
Beautiful Riverview
This morning I’m leading chapel down at Riverview Estates, a local assisted living facility for which I’m privileged to serve on the Board 1. By the time chapel begins there might be 15 people there, and over the years the faces have changed – a lot. Some folks will sing with great joy and exuberance,…
