the unlikely orange

as i sit in my office in preparation for my 4th sunday at the Catawissa Avenue United Methodist Church in Sunbury, PA, i am reminded of the amazing blessing and responsibility it is to be serving a church.  it is, to be honest, a wonderful vocation, full of the joys of people's lives - joys like weddings and births and new jobs and anniversaries and answered prayers.  it is full of spiritual sojourning, walking together, eating together, welcoming new travelers along the way.  it is, at times, dripping with hope, like great drops of life-blood that can't be contained by the skins of these church buildings.  but it is also an awesomely humbling vocation, full of pain and grief, and every kind of brokenness.  it is always marked with the scars of life, and sometimes requires dealing with very open wounds.  when it is at its best and most honest, it is completely full of our brokenness and both our worst and best potentialities.  and in all that, to be...

this last sunday was my final chance to preach at clinton united methodist church.  preparing for this sermon was rather difficult for me.  first of all you have the overwhelming pressure of trying to prepare something significant and adequate to be a powerful postlude to four years of ministry.  it feels like a much bigger deal than preparing your average sermon.  then there's the question of topic.  what do you talk about?  what becomes the one message that you want to leave people with?  for me that part was pretty simple. i once had a mentor who told me that every preacher basically has one sermon, and that you preach that sermon over and over again.  no matter what text or topic you are tackling, you are always still preaching that one sermon.  ever since i heard that, i have found that so compelling, and it hasn't been too difficult for me to put my finger on precisely that one sermon.  it's simple: you. are. loved. and so th...

let's go steelers! beat the colts!

go steelers! beat the giants!