We’ve been lacking sanctuary for awhile around here.  Church has gone on every Sunday, of course, but for the second year in a row we’ve spent part of the summer worshipping outside our sanctuary.   It makes sense for us…DC becomes a ghost town for much of the summer every year…with so many folks in our church away, our 800 seat sanctuary begins to feel a bit, well, cavernous and empty.  When we gather for a more informal worship in a... Read more

It is a stunningly gorgeous day outside, as it was eleven years ago.  Everything feels somber in this city, whose world was especially rocked by the 9/11 attacks.  I can’t think of generic words that might be appropriate this day, so maybe a prayer instead: O God,   We are busy, busy people.  We rush around in all our importance, making plans and setting goals, moving through life as if we control the minutes and the hours that make up... Read more

Re-imagine Sanctuary Psalm 84 Welcome back to the sanctuary this morning.  We’ve been out for most of the summer and it feels good to be back, doesn’t it?  Today we begin a series in worship where we’re looking at the Israelites’ prayer book, the Psalms, and reimagining some of the thing we take for granted in our life together as the church.  Today we’re talking about sanctuary. Recently, after picking up a copy of Budget Traveler magazine and reading an... Read more

“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” ~Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith In a defiant act of utter desperation, I am procrastinating at the task of writing by writing.  This may seem ludicrous to the casual observer, but it’s almost instinctual to me.  My favorite thing is to play with a puzzle of words, so why not put a few down on paper and kill some more time?  Makes complete sense.... Read more

I’ve been away from church for awhile.  That said, I think in the general category of excuses for missing church, mine hold up pretty well.  Vacation and some professional development pulled me away.  It’s good every once in awhile, especially if church is your work, to take a break. But I find that after a few weeks that I am missing church. Part of this is missing the rhythm and routine of my work.  While I was visiting family these... Read more

I’ve been looking back a lot these past days.  I went back and reread years and years of blog entries and remembered when I was young.  And funny.  And when I was still being formed as a pastor and mother and person in general, and all of the strange observations I made over the course of that process. I have looking back a lot these days to try to discern where a book should come from…and whether all the funny... Read more

You can read a version of this entry in The Washington Post. I’ve been a little surprised at the outpouring of interest and support that has come Calvary’s way after we voted this week to disaffiliate with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).  We are not the first Baptist church to leave the SBC, but perhaps we’re a congregation whose history of relationship with the SBC made that separation a little harder. Calvary’s affiliation with the SBC was long-standing and historic,... Read more

We Are the Church: Blessing Our Commitments John 2:1-11 Did you ever notice how often Jesus and weddings go together in the Gospels?  Jesus was forever talking about weddings and the Kingdom of God, comparing a wedding celebration to life in relationship with the Divine.  Weddings were among his favorite sermon illustrations!    We preacher types also love to use the metaphor of weddings in our preaching, too.  Everybody understands what a wedding is like; many of us have lived through... Read more

It appears that Ross Douthat of the New York Times started a bit of a firestorm last week with his article, “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?”  I am, of course, primarily basing this statement on evidence from my Facebook feed; I presume that much of the reading world really cared very little about Douthat’s thoughts.  Nevertheless, his commentary focused on a recent meeting of the Episcopal church, positing that a more liberal Christianity is, well, abysmally failing as it relates... Read more

Calvary member Rachel Johnson recently sent me this reflection, just “a thing she wrote.”  As it is a quite beautiful thing, I asked her permission to share it here.  We’ve begun lately a series in worship called We Are the Church, where we do the work of the church in Sunday morning worship a little more unconventionally than normal.  We began the series with a service celebrating the life of Calvary member Dee Robbins and lifting up the work of... Read more