As many of you know, General Conference 2019 was a challenging meeting of the United Methodist Church. Many people were unhappy with the outcome, especially here in the United States. People were hoping for change, but instead the decision was to keep traditional language that excludes homosexuals from being ordained. Some of my friends are …
From Worship Experiences
Choices to Make, Choose Whom You Will Serve
We make so many choices in our lives every day. What will we wear? What route to take to work? Will we work as expected or goof off? Going to the grocery store means choosing from hundreds of varieties of beans, toothpaste, cereal, applesauce. Sometimes we can be overwhelmed by our choices. Tom and I …
Are We Yet Alive and See Each Other’s Face?
Every year at Annual Conference, during the opening worship service, we sang “And are we yet alive and see each other’s face?” It is an old hymn with words by Charles Wesley. This hymn has been sung at Methodist gatherings for over 200 years. It certainly was a poignant hymn when most of the preachers …
God Sightings: Seeing God Every Day
When I was a pastor, the Wedgewood Church participated in a God Sightings Program. For me, it was one of those simple ideas that helped make God personal and real to people. The idea is simple: God appears to us everyday but we don’t see it because we don’t look for God. By looking for …
Dismembering and Remembering the Body of Christ
Today is the first Sunday of the month, which means communion for a lot of United Methodist Churches. Over the summer I heard a sermon which I have been saving for a Communion Sunday meditation. It was on dismembering and remembering. When we take communion, the officiant says, “This is my body, broken for you. …
Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
I recently finished reading the book “Searching for Sunday” by Rachel Held Evans. It was my first devotional book of 2019. I read her book, “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” in 2013 and enjoyed her humorous attempt to live a Biblical lifestyle. As good as that book was, “Searching for Sunday” was even better. Rachel …
Border Wall, the Bible, and the Government Shutdown
Tom and I are currently in the fifth week of the government shutdown with little end in sight. I feel that a border wall is a useless waste of money. Let’s invest in more agents and better technology for our border security. Holding government workers as hostages in a battle over whether to build this …
Wesleyan Covenant Service at Wesley UMC
Tom and I decided to come to Georgia to wait out the government shutdown. We figured, as long as we are paying for a place to live, we might as well go someplace with good weather. Although we are not on St. Simons Island, we are close. So, on the first Sunday of January, we …
Chronological One Year Bible from Tyndale
I start every day with time in the Bible, devotional reading, and prayer. Putting God first in my day is very important to me. I set my alarm so I have this half hour of quiet at the beginning of the day. This last year my time in the Bible and my devotional reading came …
Christmas Past, Present, and Future
A classic Christmas, remade many times in the movies, is Charles Dickens‘ “A Christmas Carol.” Just in case you have never heard of it, “A Christmas Carol” tells the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, a miserable miser. He is visited by three ghosts, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost …