community of grace

One of my favorite websites is http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/. Even though I have never met any of the women who write and post there, they have become my virutual community during the week as I plan to preach. And isn't that what the capital-C Church should be - a place where we can come from a variety of backgrounds with nothing in common other than a desire for God, no matter where we are on our journey with the divine - wandering, wondering, seeking, thinking, questioning, praising, loving, rejoicing, lamenting, doubting, hoping, praying?

This is my Christmas prayer - that all who come tonight will find a word for their journey, even if they don't realize they are on one. Christmas peace and love.

Glimpes of God

During the past few days, God has popped up quite a few times! God has quite a knack for doing that!

• A man who was beaten up, shoeless, and coatless found his way to the church on Monday morning. He had walked a couple of miles to get there, saying he knew he could use the phone and find a safe place to wait. He had been beaten up and robbed by his friends. I'm sure there was more to the story that that, but here he found safety, hospitality and welcome. I was reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan. This nameless man certainly was like the traveler beaten and robbed. I think we were like the inn, a place where he could rest and recover for a little while before continuing his life journey. My prayers are with him.


• Some of our older ladies met yesterday afternoon for their class's Christmas party. They also considered some requests for the money they make at our rummage sales and bazaars. They freely offered a gift for our Water of Life Christmas Miracle Offering to purchase a water tank for our friends in Tanzania, paid for study books purchased for a Bible study class at our local senior citizens' apartment complex and paid for a semester scholarship for our Children's Morning Out program. How blessedly generous they are to provide for groups that they themselves won't benefit from!


• Wesley is in love with the baby Jesus. He carries around the little Jesuses from the nativity sets we have out, hugs them, kisses them, tries to change their diapers. I pray he's that in love with the grown-up and risen Jesus as Wesley himself grows, too!

Comfort and hope

This week, I'm preaching on Isaiah 40:1-11 and John the Baptist in Mark 1:1-8. The theme is "Messengers of Hope". As I've been preparing and praying, I've been on the lookout for people or situations that bring hope to us, even hope in the most unlikely ways.

The descriptions of John the Baptist remind me so much of homeless men that I encountered almost daily when living in Philadelphia. He dressed in what he could find - animal hides. Men who are homeless wear what they can find - discarded coats and trashbags. He scavenged for food, grubbing up bugs and stealing honeycombs. These men scavenge for food as well, grubbing up discarded food in dumpsters and leftover handouts from guilt-stricken passersby.

If John the Baptist calls us to repent for the time of God's coming is near, wouldn't the homeless men and women of our nation call us to do the same? What about the starving children in lands of famine? Or evacuees from natural disasters? Or fly-covered women and men with rotting wounds in refugee camps?

What is it that I need to repent of? Where is the hope in this call to shuv, to turn around, to begin a new way of life?

It's beginning to look a lot like ...

Christmas. I'm violating my own standards of not starting anything Christmas-related until Thanksgiving Day. I've been sucked in by the incessant Christmas music on three radio stations in our area. Even my children now clamor for the Christmas music. Usually they are asking for loud, obnoxious rock - Mike has ruined their musical taste. :)

The one benefit I've noticed to this onslaught of Christmas music is the number of references to Jesus in the songs. At no other time of the year do non-Christian radio stations willingly flood their airwaves with songs about the place of Jesus, the purpose of Christ's coming to earth, and the glory of God. My prayer as hundreds of thousands of people turn their dial into these stations is that people will pause and ask themselves, "Who is Jesus? Why is he important?" and that they will begin to fan the spark of the Holy Spirit that is in every person.

Will you join me in that prayer as well? Or in asking the questions if that's where you are right now?

Birthday girl

Tuesday was Anya's first birthday. The time goes by so fast! It snowed Tuesday, which was appropriate because it snowed on the way home from Birthcare with her. As Thanksgiving approaches, I am so grateful for this year with her, and with Wes and Jackson.



Parenting, and for me, mothering, is such a means of grace for me, as John Wesley would say. I am constantly confronted with my limits, and it's only the grace of God that lets me persevere. Parenting shows me every day where I fail and reminds me that the world does not revolve around me, but is bigger than I can every imagine. It connects me with mothers all around the world, in ways that are painful and joyful.



I can't imagine my life without them. And so, as this Thanksgiving approaches, I am thankful for the privilege to mother.

Men and Church

I'm back after a rather long hiatus - one additional baby and lots of good stories later!



The other morning, Jackson was talking about going to church. He said that when he was an adult, he wasn't going to go to church. I said, "Don't you want to take your kids to church?" He said, "No, if I have a wife, she will be the one to take them.

I almost fell over! His dad takes him to church every week, his mom is the pastor, and out of his mouth comes this statement that is so in line with traditional gender roles! Where did he absorb such a common stereotype? I couldn't believe what he was saying!

But he did bring up an interesting point - the feminization of the church. For many years, the church has been seen as the "women's domain". We are blessed - our congregation has many families where both partners attend and worship regularly and we have men in leadership roles from our children's ministries through our senior ministries. Being a female pastor, I am acutely aware of the need to have a balance of male-female leadership and to have strong men's ministries. If we miss out on me, we miss a huge amount of gifts and of lives that can be transformed.

What do you think?

Little bunny

I was reading Wes The Runaway Bunny tonight. It's a story of a little bunny who threatens to run away from home. His mother doesn't get alarmed but says she will go after him, no matter where he goes. He becomes a rock on a mountain, she will become a mountain climber. He becomes a crocus in a hidden garden, she will become a gardener. And my favorite, he will become a bird so he can fly away. "If you become a bird and fly away, I will become the tree you come home to."

The illustration is beautiful - the little bunny is flying with these great Ithacus-like wings on his rabbit body and the tree is in the shape of the the mommy rabbit, so gentle and soft and inviting. It's a lovely image - our mother being the place we come to roost, to rest, to nest, to relax and be.

It's also who God is for us. The entire book is an allegory for who God is for each of us in the world, whether it's intended that way or not. No matter where we go or what we become, God is there with us, either coming after us, going to meet us, or becoming whatever it is we come home to.

Even if it's a mommy rabbit tree.