Intersections

Merry Christmas! Jesus Christ is born! I hope the joy, hope, love, and peace of the season visited your home this week. Maybe you have the next week off until the New Year to relax. Hopefully, you haven’t taken down your tree yet. This is only the third day of Christmas - we have nine more to go! In my family, we keep the tree up until Epiphany - January 6th, just to enjoy the fullness of the season. After the celebrations this past week,  today might be kind of a letdown. You may also be surprised that it’s not one of the pastors giving the message today, but they have had quite a year, so hopefully, they can relax a little bit, too, knowing they didn't need to prepare for Sunday after a Thursday service.  The gospel message this week is also kind of a letdown - there are no shepherds, no wise men, no singing angels or stars to follow to a manger. But don't think that I have a light message for you! If advent has been about waiting, the preparations have paid off because the C

Welcome to the Tuesday devotional. My name is Daniel Douglas, and I am a clergy candidate for the position of local pastor. I asked Pastor Karen for some experience in the pulpit. We decided it was best to start small with this devotional.  How are you feeling these days? Or, as John Wesley liked to ask, how goes it with your soul? Is it charged up and ready to go? Or I’m suspecting that, like many of us, you could use some encouragement.  That brings us to today’s devotional verse - 1 Thessalonians 5:11, where Paul writes, “This is why you must encourage and help each other, just as you are already doing.” Some other translations say, “Bring hope” or “Build each other up.”  Having been through the most recent months, the never-ending election, the pandemic, good and bad times can happen - and change - very quickly. Even the next phone call or text message could be the difference between a great day and a lousy one. This week, I got the dreaded phone call stating that there were potent