It’s remarkable how many transformative words stay locked within the walls of our churches. Our messages are beautiful, life-changing, and somehow secret. Our ideas are available only to those who know our addresses and trust us enough to step inside.

Wesley preaches because the pitch, tone, words, cadence, movement, shifts, and emotion in the voice or expression is another way to communicate a finite witness to the infinite proposal of love from God found in Jesus Christ.

As we enter 2024, there is deep apprehension and fear about the pending presidential election this fall in the United States. How do we stay connected to our faith in such anxiety ridden times?

As someone who attaches a great deal of importance to words, it might surprise you that sometimes I find the things that mean most to me of all are things that I find hard to express with words.

What do we do with the memories that haunt us? That sneak up on us late at night.  And whisper words that cut quick to our core?

Recently, AI tools have given us the capacity to work with greater efficiency, to communicate with increased ease, to create digital content, and to give our communities the tools to tell their faith stories.  But just as important as improving or increasing our adoption of technologies is the church’s call to cultivate leadership for an accelerating world.

Theologians and practitioners have used the word “liminal space” or “liminal time” to describe these experiences. They are the point at which you become aware that a transition is about to occur. Liminal literally means, “threshold”. Think of walking through a doorway and going through/over a threshold. You are neither in one room nor the other; you are in-between. However you can see both, one behind and in front.

The message of the angel is as scandalous and striking now as it was then. For in it is embedded God’s message in the death and resurrection of Jesus: to trust and believe in the invincibility of the good in spite of the titanic reality of evil, because God is good all the time.

Home is a place, yes, but it's also a commitment, a demand that God's justice would unfurl here and now, a faith that expects to taste God's grace in the people and the places where God has planted us.  Home is a feeling and a commitment.

Be not conformed to this world, the Bible says, but be transformed by the renewing of your hearts. Or, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. What are those conforming things that we should be watching out for? What keeps us from freedom?

Theologians have a word for this kind of revealing, when something stark and dire and even painful occurs and reveals a deeper truth, something hidden in plain sight; it is called apocalypse. The word apocalypse includes the meaning “unveiling” or “disclosing”.

In this trajectory, the church takes a temporary step back from its current tech usage, in order to reflect on the resources most aligned to a ministry’s purpose.

The task at hand for young people of faith is to draw from our traditions to steward this change—this social transformation—towards the redemptive possibilities of loving exceedingly, seeking justice, practicing hospitality, and giving generously. In doing so, we might reimagine and create anew the means through which our communities join together across differences.

All Saints Sunday gives us a very personal way to talk about the present and future by talking about the past. Who are we? Who do we want to be? Those saints from our past give us a way to talk about where we are and where we are headed.

Prayer seeks the good and well-being of others. It is an act and expression of love as we lift someone or some circumstances before the God whom the Bible says is love. And that is not only a matter of expression. It leads to and undergirds outward action.

I know some countries and companies are flirting with 4 day work weeks, or 6 hour workdays and finding increased happiness and productivity among their employees. They aren’t being lazy, but have learned what I have - there is so much more to life than work. 

A close reading of Mark 12: 41-44, especially interpreted through the lens of the Law found in Deuteronomy (14:22-29), stirs up important questions about an often used stewardship approach that interprets this as an object lesson from Jesus regarding individual, sacrificial giving: a person of limited means asked to give generously beyond their livelihood. 

We've had to rebuild all of our systems for who we are today. I don't know that we would've had permission without that kind of isolation to rethink some things that probably needed to be rethought, frankly.

A one on one interview with Pastor Erika Spaet exploring the challenges of planting a church and building relationships between the congregation and the community in an ever-changing world.

AI may be shaping the cultural and technological environment, but we also have an opportunity to shape norms around its usage and in the process to raise important ethical and theological questions about how one can and should use these powerful tools. AI represents a seismic change in both technology and culture.