Each week as I prepare worship, often with the sermon in mind, there are a variety of practices I employ. In addition to time invested in prayer and studying the scripture passage, I dig into theologians' writings who have also studied our scripture passage. This week's readings offered the introductory line to this week's letter.
Read MoreToday at the end of my musings, I invite you to ask yourself some questions. However, I realized upon completion that often self-awareness can be uncomfortable, especially if we're avoiding it.
Read MoreThere is a lot going on. The weekly newsletter is the best way for you to get all of the information about all of the different things.
Read MoreWhen I was growing up and a pastor used sports metaphors all the time, I would often roll my eyes when he got started. That’s how I feel on your behalf anytime I start a conversation with “parenting has taught me.” I guess what I want you to know is these lessons are available in many walks of life, these lessons just seem to slap me upside the face when there’s a little human on the other side of the lesson.
Sometimes these lessons coming from the mouths of babes are straight from their classrooms. And, while relational and psychological lessons can be a challenge, there’s nothing like my educational blocks being proverbially kicked out of my mental foundation.
As we prepare for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about family expectations and social expectations. Holidays often come with a wide variety of internal voices telling us “you should do this” or “you should’ve said that.” It’s hardest when these internalized voices now come in our own voice instead of those who introduced those family and social expectations. I have a friend that says it’s me “should-ing all over myself.”
Read MoreStewardship Sermon Series finales don’t make a lot of sense. Ideally, over the last few weeks, your pledge for 2020 has already been on your mind. If you’re in a serious relationship, ideally, you and your partner have discussed your relationship with LUMC, your convictions around giving, and maybe even thrown out a number or two as suggestions of what you’d like to give. If you have a family, ideally, you all have talked over dinner or before bedtime about what it means to have values and how our words and actions are how we communicate our values to our friends, neighbors, and even strangers.
Read More
