Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope that you all were able to have a meaningful celebration of Christmas this week and are able to find rest amidst the holiday hub-bub that tends to take over at this time of the year! I want to provide a little “light”...
The Rev. Dr. Van Herd and I have a running joke about discernment: He says he is discerning God’s call to a place where the sun always shines and lemons grow year-round. He puts great emphasis on “call” to underscore the seriousness of the matter – with a twinkle in...
The holidays are often a mixed bag for most people. While the ad agencies have manufactured what our Christmas should look like and be like (matching PJs, perfectly blown hair, skipping and dancing all the way, a perfectly crafted ham and painted on smiles), that is very likely not the...
Hi Church Family! When I was growing up I would frequently be asked by my friends the question that I’m sure many of us can relate to: “Do you want to come to church with me?” Almost always my answer was a firm “No thanks!” This wasn’t because I was...
Dear Church: The story starts here: Patch Adams checks himself into a mental institution because he sees no point to his life. There he encounters Arthur Mendelson, who holds up four fingers to everyone he passes and asks, “How many fingers do you see?” No one provides a satisfactory response,...
About a month ago (mid-October), I was roaming around Costco looking for the Halloween candy (because you need a 45 lb bag of Halloween candy for the kids) and quickly found myself inside a forest of pine trees with blinking Christmas lights and singing blow-up snowmen. Christmas already!? I mean...
Happy Thursday, Everyone! It has come to my attention that the congregation-at-large is unaware of where we are with our project on renovating/restoring/replacing the Otto Hofmann pipe organ in the sanctuary at UBC! I want to be as transparent as possible during this process as it is a massive undertaking...
Dear Church: I am struck by the eagerness of this congregation to be about something new. There is a desire to act. It is not a desire for willy-nilly doing but for purposeful activity. I observe a readiness to engage our university community, to cultivate relationships that make the most...
Dear Church: How much more can we say about the hate that afflicts our world today? Whatever judgments we might make, the day’s headlines show the inadequacy of our conclusions. Things are worse than we thought. Last week authorities intercepted bombs sent to critics of the president. A man tried...
Last Wednesday, I was invited to be a part of the interfaith panel held here at UBC hosted by Texas Freedom Network and the Transgender Education Network of Texas. The panel was titled “Uniting Our Communities and Countering Hate” and I don’t know if the discussion could have come at...