When I first got back to Westminster from a summer sabbatical, I preached a sermon on God’s action in our lives. I talked about how God is always present, always moving, always acting in our lives, even when it feels like God is doing none of those things. I talked about how God has a habit of taking God’s people into the wilderness, or waiting room, and leaving them there for a season. I talked abo…
Listen and Hear A few years ago, I was driving through town on my way to House of Manna to work at my internship there. I have this terribly bad habit of listening to music far too loud in my car, like probably going to do lasting damage to my ear drums loud. I like to feel the kick drum, not just hear it. On this particular day, I had gone back to hear one of my favorite albums from one of my…
This week we are kicking off our church calendar year with our annual Taste and See event. We are Presbyterians of course, so how are we going to get things started right? With more food than you can possibly imagine, of course! I’ve had an interesting relationship with food over the course of my life. Ever since I was a tiny boy, I have been a picky eater. For a while there I only had a handful o…
I remember the first time I ever preached. I was in my youth group at Beulah Presbyterian Church, and for a youth group one night a collection of us were asked to give the message. I think I had maybe ten minutes or so to preach, but preaching it was. And my goodness, it was exhilarating! Something about all the prep work that happened ahead of time, the build up, the delivery, it was…
How good is your memory? Do you remember what your first bike looked like? Or your first grade teacher’s name? Or what you had for breakfast two days ago? I don’t know about you, but my memory is horrible. I don’t believe I can answer any of those questions, or at least the little fragments of answers I can come up with could be just what I’ve concocted in my own mind. I’ll set aside how nervous that make…
