Sunday afternoon Julie and I were driving through San Dimas and saw a church sign with the intriguing phrase: “Can Women Preach?”. My usual sarcastic response was No! but Julie said, “Too late.” All who go to this church would dismiss this sign out of hand. We’ve had a women
Continue readingPentecost is upon us. The event is like a fairy-tale to me: the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire, the disciples doing things they had never done before, and finally the proclamation and change in the crowd. These events are hard to relate to for some.
Continue readingTime flies; I feel it more than ever as I have gotten older. When I was a kid, days, weeks and months seemed to last forever. The school year was endless; for that matter the school day was endless. The outside world was always calling, Mr. Hoff would have to
Continue readingExperiences in other worship settings and even secular locations prompt me to wonder how communities create and hold sacred space, and transitional spaces. This is the organizing principle of sabbatical time, gifted to me by you the congregation. The time of my sabbatical leave is April 27 to July 27.
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Sabbatical is a time to lie fallow, not be too concerned with producing results. For pastors, it is a time in which one can step away from the daily demands and routines of congregational life for intellectual and spiritual growth, for respite. I am deeply grateful to serve a congregation
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Because there are people who are explicit in their hating. When I was 14, I had a crush on a boy in school: old story. What was unusual was his use of the swastika; he’d drawn it on his book covers and other various places. It never occurred to me
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When I was in elementary school, around this time of year, I remember friends of mine would suddenly say at lunch, “Oh I can’t eat that; I gave it up for Lent.” What was this “Lent” of which they spoke with such authority and finality? They never seemed to know,
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We read about it in the papers. There is not enough housing available in California to meet the current need; there are roughly 600,000 units needed to meet current demand. We know people are being displaced by high rents and/or lack of availability. Our congregation helps support Our House Shelter,
Continue readingOnce a year, Old South Church (UCC) packs up handbells, brass choir, cookies, coffeepots, wastebaskets and more and heads across Boston to their original meetinghouse for worship. The congregation has in its DNA a predisposition to “mouth-off” as the British derided them. They spoke up against slavery, spoke up for
Continue readingThe president of the congregation sent an email indicating 650 people attended the service. Mike, Tim Reed and I were in attendance Friday night at Temple Beth Israel for Shabbat. It was called Solidarity Shabbat and Jewish congregations around the nation gathered, inviting the communities in which they live and
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