Intersections

  Where have you felt most at home? I gotta be honest, when I was switching churches from Covenant to here, I was nervous as anything. Not only was I coming to a whole community that I had never met, but ya'll expected me to lead in an area which I felt very unprepared for. Don't get me wrong, I had a good several months of culture and career change shock, but I'd like to think I handled it well. How do you know you're at a place that feels like home? As some of you know from the Eagles' song, it's a peaceful easy feeling. You can let your guard down after some time... it's amazing how long some people keep their guards up. Especially in church. I understand the idea that this is where you've always attended or your parents or grandparents laid the foundation. But you still need to feel at home, comfortable, because that helps in living an authentic life.  This scene reminded me, if you crank up the dramatics past ten, of a scene from the Lord of the R...

  This morning we are celebrating Trinity Sunday - that may not mean a whole lot to each of you, but it’s a celebration of the triune nature of God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the celebration of these three - in some pastors, there’s a desire to try to explain the relationship between these, and so this might be a really quick sermon or much more than anyone bargained for today. To help out - let’s take a twenty minute meditation as I have my children come in here with blown up photos of puppies and kittens.   Ok - they’re not coming. But this is one of the most difficult concepts in the whole Bible to try to explain. And any of my words will not do it any justice, even if I was an expert on the topic, but I am not. What do you think of when you think of wisdom? Your teeth? - all four of my wisdom teeth are out. Do you think of the term “collective wisdom” - wisdom seems to be more than just one individual thing, right? Like - let’s put our brains together...

The Bible is full of big stories, and how they can get done through what God can do. From Noah and the ark, Joseph and his ability to decipher dreams, to Daniel in the lions' den; God is capable of doing amazing things.  Pentecost is one of these stories. Let me set up the scene, Jesus had just died and before his ascension to heaven, told the disciples - stay in Jerusalem until they receive "the gift that the Father promised", and that soon they will be "baptized with the Holy Spirit", in chapter 1 of Acts.  Since they were followers of Jesus, they decided to wait. It may have been like hunkering down at the beginning of our pandemic. They knew something awesome was going to happen, they just couldn't know WHEN it would. We don't know what time of year it is when Jesus tells them to wait, but we know now that is the time of Pentecost.  Pentecost is also known as "the Festival of Weeks" because it happens fifty days, or approximately seven week...

School’s out! My kids just finished up their last in their respective classes, and I’m sure they are excited to be out for a couple months. I know especially that the teachers are ready for a break. My favorite memories of summertime were being able to ride my bike through my neighborhood and playing games with my friends - whether it was baseball, basketball, street hockey, or whatever - we’d take advantage of all of the daylight that we could. There’s something about this time about this time of year that everything feels a little looser, like our spirit gets reinvigorated. Not sure if it’s the sunshine, the warm weather, or more things to do, but I’ll take it, especially since the COVID restrictions have been lifted most places. We feel like we can travel if we want, even if it’s to a state park or lake for some camping.  This aliveness reminds me of Pentecost, which we will be celebrating on  June  5th - the day when the Holy Spirit came down to live in the hearts of ...