You know you wanted to get one in the mail. Okay, maybe not. We debated long and hard in our house this year about whether to send out a Christmas letter. We’ve done it every year since we married (this is, then,the 16th!) and have gone through the predictable stages of family Christmas letter angst (watch out Elisabeth Kübler-Ross!): the deep certainty that everyone cares; the nagging suspicion that some people might not be as ecstatic to receive our Christmas... Read more
Okay, everyone. 13 days until Christmas. I am not trying to be ugly, but I am almost all done with Christmas shopping and plan to fully and totally enjoy the season with my church family and my family family. I’ll admit pulling up to the curb, unloading packages dragging all five of them through the line and then leaving them (leaving them!) with the nice lady behind the Post Office counter was just grand. Part of my happy gift-giving experience... Read more
A condition I experience very infrequently (speechlessness) occurred the other day when my friend Amanda told me about PostRapturePost.I laughed, I cried, I wondered how on earth these smart young men had time to come up with such an innovative idea . . . I rehearsed arguments for entering into a professional relationship by which I would earn a commission for each sale I refer . . . (church membership, gold package??!?).And, (though this was a hard decision) I finally... Read more
Last year around this time I responded to the challenge of the Pastoral Relations Committee to think of creative ways to communicate with the congregation as our congregation members are dispersed throughout a large geographical area and many have professional obligations that keep them very busy. Since Calvary’s website gets quite a bit of traffic and has been, hands down, the most effective outreach tool we’ve used in recent years, it made sense that the Internet would be a quite... Read more
Be one yourself: www.jacksonpollock.org Read more
Some of the young adults at Calvary organized the Hanging of the Greens Monday night, just to make sure our sanctuary is ready for Advent. I dropped in after Church Council meeting and it was apparent there was everyone was having a lot of fun setting things up. I left them to their busy work soon after, but when I came in this morning it was apparent that WAY more fun was had after I left. (Sigh. What’s new?) After... Read more
I personally think part of the reason she is so popular is because Barbara Brown Taylor has the guts (and the word-smithing talent) to say what we all think inside but either can’t or won’t express out loud.Her recent book, Leaving Church, is different from her other books (it’s a memoir) but she accomplishes the same gutsy truth-telling here. Maybe she voices what only professional clergy feel, but I suspect her words are not limited to those of us who... Read more
“All we need is a letter from the pastor.”That’s what the organizers of the Church Directory tell me.But I don’t want to write a letter, because I know . . . I can tell from hanging around the church office . . . that whatever goes in the church directory stands in posterity for years and years. And years.20, I believe, since the last time we did a picture directory. (To be fair I went back and checked. In reality... Read more
“True, we have to hate evil; else we’re sentimental. But if we hate evil more than we love the good, we become damn good haters, and of those the world already has too many. However deep, our anger, like that of Christ, must always and only measure our love.” William Sloane Coffin Read more
GratitudeSend some rain, would You send some rain?‘Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink againAnd the sun is high and we are sinking in the shadeWould You send a cloud, thunder long and loud?Let the sky grow black and send some mercy downSurely You can see that we are thirsty and afraidBut maybe not, not todayMaybe You’ll provide in other waysAnd if that’s the case . . .We’ll give thanks to YouWith gratitudeFor lessons learned in how to... Read more
Talk with the Preacher
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In