ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 20, 2023“Do you think God loves…?” It might surprise you, but I get that question a lot. After the “…,” there are many different groups or individuals that might be referenced, but the question is almost always asked with great sincerity, often emerging from a discussion they had with someone who seemed very adamant that a certain person or group was outside of God’s love. Or,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 19, 2023This Sunday, we are going to play around with one of the best-known texts in the Bible, yet one that remains full of new life and new insight. I am speaking of John 3:16, the passage that begins with those well-used words, “For God so loved the world…” As I have said before and will mention again on Sunday, the Greek word we translate as
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 18, 2023Donna and I started watching a new series on AppleTV entitled Lessons in Chemistry. It is set in the early 1950s, and a chemist by the name of Elizabeth Zott finds that her gender seems to disqualify her from being taken seriously among other chemists. In fact, she is a lap tech whose only jobs are to get coffee and clean up the lab. When
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 17, 2023I have not written about the violence in Israel and Gaza since the events of October 7, in part because I have not really known what to say. In my prayer on Sunday, I spoke of hope for a third way, but I will confess to you that my usual hopeful attitude has been waning in this situation. In the past, I’ve been called naively
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 16, 2023Prayer for the Week: Holy God of Heaven, why did you make your key teaching on love so difficult? Why did you create so many cumbersome restrictions and complicated precepts to regulate how I am to love my neighbor? Oh wait! Never mind…that was us humans. Allow for your forgiveness to be my inspiration, pushing through all that inhibits my capacity to know, enjoy, and
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 15, 2023Donna and I made our annual Estimate of Giving for the church’s work of Putting Love First, specifically thinking about the ONE who has been at the center of our conversations the last month or so. I am sure there are many emotional reactions to a church having a Stewardship Program in which it invites those who are committed to the mission to make an
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 14, 2023Today, along with a handful of you all from the church, I will be listening to Rev. Bruce Barkhauer do a workshop at Kingwood Christian Church. Though the topic might not excite everyone, I believe more and more folks need to hear about Demystifying Stewardship. Stewardship has become one of those righteous-sounding Christian words, but I am pretty sure folks from other religions, alongside atheists,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 13, 2023This week, I got called for jury duty. I have a strong emotional reaction to the idea of jury duty. Part of it is the drive downtown early in the morning and the challenges of making sure I find parking. Of course, like so many things, it was easier than I might have expected. I also have a more fundamental conundrum around serving on a
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 12, 2023Yesterday, I referenced the importance of keys, the focus of my sermon on October 1, and a central part of our Stewardship Campaign: “We Do This Work For The One Who Has Been Told…” Too often, people have been told outright or in more subtle ways that they are not smart enough to draw insight from the scriptures without “the educated” telling them what to
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSOctober 11, 2023My friend Michelle Beech posted the following quote yesterday, and it really resonated with me. “We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.”~Mary Catherine Bateson I did not know the name Mary Catherine Bateson, but like so often happens, once I started reading about her, I was intrigued and realized she was probably a person I should have had