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...

How should we live? You don't ask yourself that question, right? Oh, you don't? I guess I'm the weirdo here then. There are so many shoulds in our lives, especially now during Advent. Should we send Christmas cards, should we visit our estranged extended families? We should be living with joy. The candle that was lit this morning is a representation of that joy. Although it doesn’t come across as such, this scripture is about joy. Last week, we began this set of scripture with John the Baptist, and he was brought to focus on the Messiah - whose time has not come yet. He was sent to prepare the world for the arrival. Screaming at the crowds who come to you, doesn’t seem like the right vibe? Let’s go through the text slowly to set the scene…  Luke sets up John like this… the crowds came to him to be baptized. Again - still in the wilderness, so these are wanderers, sojourners, disconnected people who wanted to belong. They were looking for something, even something that co...

  Here we are, one week closer to Christmas. Hope you are starting your preparations well. Who is done with their shopping? For the first time in a long time, I think we are done, if not very close to being totally done with our preparations in our own home. Our tree is up, and decorated, even if our cat likes to nibble at the branches at the bottom. The outside lights are up, and we even have a spotlight for our garage that has various snowflake shapes in it. We were gifted it from my mother-in-law last year, and it ended up in the garage, but somehow got moved (let’s be honest, I was probably the culprit of that) and so it fell BEHIND some of the shelving, and behind a piece of plywood on the floor. Thankfully, Tadjena is amazingly thorough and relentless, so she was able to find it after looking for what feels like two weeks. So - yeah - we’ve gone through our to do list, and making sure it’s getting done, and with that comes a sense of peace. Are you one who really likes being ...

  How is everyone feeling? I know today’s topic is Coming Home, and we are right after Thanksgiving, so how many went home for it (or welcomed travelers from out of town) - traveled more than two hours for their celebration? Four hours?  For those who did not travel or to spend time with extended family - how were you feeling? Were you relieved? Anxious? Hopeful? Ambivalent?  Time to Go Home needs thoughtful preparation, but no matter where home is hope lives. You have freedom to be who God created you to be.  There are preparations to do, whether traveling or receiving guests. Now, when preparing for either hosting or traveling, it would be helpful to have a plan to make sure everything gets done before you leave, and then another method while you’re on the road - mapping out the route to your destination. I spent many hours on highways between here and southern Wisconsin, where my extended family lives. This was in the days before personal electronics, so there was...