Painfully Hopeful

Fiction Tuesday – In Motion

Walter stared into Tollen’s eyes for a moment before he finally shrugged and pocketed the stone. “You can’t shrug this away, Walter! I’ve been wondering why Merkot has suddenly become so aggressive in his policies. Well, now I see. He knew you were coming, and he’s trying to make sure you don’t get to where…

Lone Leaf

This morning, I took something out to the trash before worship. This is not the most interesting thing I’ve ever described on this blog. On the way back in to the building, however, I looked down and noticed a single leaf lying in the church driveway. We had a brief shower early in the morning,…

Amazing Grace

A couple of years ago I reconnected with one of the leaders from my high school youth group on Facebook. He’d been a good friend, but after he graduated from Eastern and gotten married we’d lost touch 1. Much to my surprise, when we reconnected I discovered he had written a show which he hoped…

Magnetic Wisdom

Shortly after I started at Central Baptist, we had a contemplative worship in the evenings called “CrossPoint.” It was a good season, and I learned much about worship by taking part in it’s organization. A number of people would like to see it return, maybe one day it will. The key to CrossPoint was an…

Police, Race, Community & Shalom

About a week ago Palmyra put up a sign advertising an upcoming town hall, co-sponsored by the NAACP and the Palmyra Police department. Given all the highly publicized 1 issues between law enforcement and the African-American community, I felt this was a meeting worth attending. The problem with attending, however, was the fact that I’m…

An afternoon with a friend

This afternoon I had lunch with ABCNJ’s Regional Pastor. He’s been on sabbatical for the last couple of weeks and it was good to sit down and simple converse as friends. My rule was “no shop talk,” I tried desperate not to bring up anything ABCNJ. I succeeded, mostly. After lunch which I headed back…