During my first year in seminary I attended a local Methodist church weekly.  The pastor gave thoughtful and well-delivered sermons.  The music, though not overwhelming, had a certain sense of beauty and devotion to it.  The fellowship was strong – intergenerational, interracial.   The piety, for lack of a better word, was strong too.  People cared […]

The details are a little foggy, but I think I was listening to NPR.  They were having a discussion with the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention around what seemed like a softening, or at least a shift, in its approach to politics.  President Greear acknowledged that the convention’s religious values had in the […]

“My daughter doesn’t currently attend church or call herself a Christian. She respects my spiritual journey and occasionally asks me about it, but she doesn’t believe that it has anything meaningful to offer her.  I understand.  I wish it were otherwise with all my heart, but I understand.  She prayed for many years.  She attended […]

When my grandmother lived out her final days and then passed away in the early hours of the morning the pastor of our church was very present to us, gathering us around my grandmother in prayer and later leading us in an intimate memorial service that honored her life and committed her into God’s hands. […]

A guiding principle of my faith is that in Jesus Christ God has overcome all that might separate us from God. To paraphrase theologian Karl Barth, Jesus Christ is God’s “yes” to a humanity that has said “no” to God.  Of course, this “yes” was “in the beginning with God,” as the Gospel of John […]

I enjoy listening to TED Talks while I’m at the gym. I heard one the other day from Emily Esfahani Smith about the pursuit of happiness, which struck me as being particularly useful, especially as we think about the role of Church in our lives. Smith suggests that while many of us think of happiness […]