This is part two of my blog series about spiritual gifts, and today we are talking about the gift of teaching. I’ve always been surrounded by teachers. All my family are school teachers – both parents, all three of my siblings, and all of their spouses. My own father taught me seventh and eighth grade,…
This fall, our church is learning together about the different ways that God has made all us and the important role each of us play in the world. We are using teaching from a part of the Bible called the book of Ephesians as we talk about this. It reads: “It was (Jesus) who gave…
“Why didn’t anyone call me?” I have heard this question more times than I can count in my 14 years as a pastor. I’ve heard this question from people who were part of our church anywhere from 3 weeks to 30 years. I have heard this question from people who show up at our church,…
Tomorrow, my precious first born turns twelve years old, and there is a whole lot of me with a whole lot of feelings about it. Of course I find myself thinking about all the things I miss about having a younger child. I miss kids books and bedtime snuggles and how excited Josiah used to…
I’m at the “count-down-how-many-sermons-I-preach-until-vacation” time of the year. It’s also the “give a little cheer when I cross something off the bulletin” time of the year. And the “I can’t do that until I get back from vacation” time of the year. And the “I refuse to buy more groceries when we are leaving soon…
It started when I was pregnant. I knew that when I had a baby, it was going to change the way I did my job as a pastor. I didn’t anticipate how much even being pregnant would impact the way I did ministry, mostly because I was very sick my entire pregnancy. I had to…
This year during lent, I decided to preach a series that I called “Woe to Us.” Lent is the season in the Church that leads up to Easter, and it is traditionally a time that Christians use to reflect on their need for Christ. This lent, it felt fitting to preach about the ways that…
