ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 5, 2026 When I was in Indianapolis last week for the Board Meeting of the Christian Church Foundation, the hotel did not have hot water. It was a nice hotel, and they were apologetic, but both mornings I took a very cold shower. Talking to others, they heated up small containers of water in their microwaves and did what some call a sponge bath. That
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 4, 2026 Prayer for the Week: There are places within each of us that go unacknowledged, yet they hold within them unspoken fears and loneliness; unvoiced grief and lostness. In our avoidance grows a lie—an invention rooted in denial, seeking to evade everything that is far from okay. Holy God, Merciful and Guiding Spirit, we can pretend only for a while. The capacity to bury
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 3, 2026 Have you ever been in a funk, feeling pretty low, when suddenly something happened that changed your mood dramatically and quickly? This has occurred numerous times in my own life. There have been situations where I was given some perspective that shook me from my doldrums. In other moments, I have felt lifted from despair, whether it was something within me or something
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 2, 2026 On this day in 1611, the King James Version of the Bible was first printed in London. It had been commissioned in 1604 by King James I of England. And though we have the King James Version of the Bible today with those very words on the cover, that was not the case when it was first printed. The cover read, “THE HOLY
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 1, 2026 Last year, I didn’t get my tomato plants in the ground early enough, and though I saw a few tomatoes in early June, my plants were nearly dead by mid-June. The heat was simply too much. It’s about timing, though the weather does have a lot to do with it, especially if the brutal heat holds off until mid-July. This year, I planted
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 30, 2026 In yesterday’s Etching, I talked about gratitude, specifically for those things we may not even see. Well, today, I want to give thanks for something we can see, though not necessarily a “thing,” but a person. I want to give thanks for Rev. Dr. Amber Mattingly, who served as our Interim Youth Minister. To be honest, I needed someone who could step in,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 29, 2026 I was sitting at the airport yesterday waiting for my flight back to Houston when I saw a man with a guide dog, though he was also being assisted by an airline employee. It was a beautiful dog, and it got me to thinking about the gift that a four-legged friend has been to that individual. Moments later, I opened my computer and,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 28, 2026 I’m in Indianapolis for the semiannual Board Meeting of the Christian Church Foundation. It is an extraordinarily talented and amazingly smart group of people, both staff and other board members. I sort of feel like the amateur in the room, though folks are very kind in explaining things. The Christian Church Foundation (CCF) helps people do good things with their money. It currently
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 27, 2026 Rev. Katelin Jordan shared the following from the Communion Table at Contemporary yesterday. And though not technically a prayer, I found the words to be stirring and thoughtful. Long ago our ancestors knew love’s power and they became the tellers of love’s tale. Love bound them in covenant, teaching them to live in community with compassion and concern for the poorest among them.
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 26, 2026 For those of us who follow Jesus, we are the body of Christ. We claim this title, not for the purpose of hunkering down and protecting ourselves, but for the simple reason that we are called to be the body of Christ. If this is a claim we believe, then we must look to Jesus as the one who defines what that actually