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Depending on how long you have been around The United Methodist Church, the words Social Principles may mean very different things to you. Some of you know them well. Our Spirited Women, for example, studied a previous version together in 2020. Some of you may remember conversations about our Social Principles from Sunday school classes, Annual Conference, or debates within the denomination. And for others, my recent preaching may be the first time you have heard the words at all. So, before we get much farther into our year of commUNITY: Living God’s Dream Together, I thought it might be worth answering a pretty basicRead More →

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I’m breaking one of the rules. For nearly twenty years, the Rev. Dr. Gennifer Brooks, my preaching professor, has lived rent-free in my head. Those of us who took some of Dr. Brooks’s earliest preaching classes share this experience. I wouldn’t call it a support group. But maybe it is. Dr. Brooks had rules for preaching. Lots of rules and I still follow most of them. They have served me remarkably well. One was this: Let the sermon go. After preaching on Sunday, reflect for a little while. Learn from what worked or what didn’t. Then kick your feet up, watch a game or takeRead More →

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Last week, Pastor Rob wrote from retreat about one thread Pastor Heather and he kept hearing in our summer survey: a longing not to navigate faith, change, and the challenges of our world alone. That was only one part of what you told us, but it points toward something larger. Across the survey, we heard a congregation asking questions about belonging and difference, care for creation and care for one another, prayer and spiritual life, our United Methodist identity, the changing world around us, and what faithful Christian living looks like in the midst of it all. Underneath many of those questions is one weRead More →

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For the past few weeks, we’ve spent a lot of time with Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and their friends—and even more importantly, with Jesus’ words in John 15. Be Loved. Be Kind. Be You. Be Brave. When Pastor Heather and I first answered the call to build a worship series around Toy Story, one of our hopes was simply to find a creative, intergenerational way into the good news of Jesus. But along the way, I’ve realized there is another benefit to a series like this: it gives parents, grandparents, and all the adults who love children a language for carrying these conversations home. Because asRead More →