Featured The Angel of No Going Back or the Day of Visitation (Luke 1:26-38) “Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.” (Luke 1:26–38 NRSV) The day of visitation Our text this morning gives us a glimpse into what early Quakers would call “a
Featured On Being Exiled, Trains and Belonging This is my sermon from this past Sunday: “I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of
Featured On Not Locking Anyone Out – Matthew 25:1-13 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their
Featured Learning to Say Farewell Finally, my brothers and sisters, farewell in the Lord. The letter to the Church in Philippi reflects Paul’s own uncertainty about his life and what I think is his own trying to prepare his community for his passing (cf. 1:6; 1:20–24; 1:27; 2:5–11;
Featured The Sketchnote Workbook I had the wonderful opportunity of being included in Mike Rohde’s new Sketchnote Workbook. This book is both beautifully illustrated and really helpful for learning how to use sketchnotes for all the different aspects of you life. Check it out.
Featured Sketchnote Preaching Awhile back I had an article published over at the Antioch Session blog on sketchnote preaching. If you’re interested in knowing more about sketchnotes and how to use it for your writing and preaching this is meant to be an introduction to the whole thing. I opened my notebook
Featured For What Must Have Seemed Like a Really Long and Drawn Out Slumber (Jonah 3) Confronting Calamity The story of Jonah is propelled forward, we learn, because Calamity looms over Nineveh. We don’t know what kind of calamity it would look like, all we know is that there is pending consequences for the Assyrian empire. And Jonah is told by God to walk headlong
Featured Finding Jonah in the First and Second Half of Life “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went
Blog Entries Sketchnote Study & Discussion Guide for Parker Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness” We are continuing our conversation through Parker Palmer’s book, “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Towards the Undivided Life.” This week I am going to post discussion guides for chapters 4, 5, 6. The way we are doing these groups is sort of like mini-circles of trust. We haven’t
Featured The Metamorphosis of the True Self (Romans 6:1-11) Metamorphosis I want to start with an image from the natural world, that symbolizes the marks of transformation is the metamorphosis of the butterfly. How many of you have had the opportunity to watch a chrysalis transform before your very eyes into a butterfly? I find the metamorphosis of a
Church in Mission Seven Readings in Revelation (A Liberation Bible Study) I have had the opportunity from time to time to write for Barclay Press. They have recently updated their website and created author pages, making some previously unavailable writings available online. Therefore, I wanted to share the link to the .pdf of my upcoming series of reflections on the book
Uncategorized Reflecting on Grief and Pastoral Care I am a monthly contributor to the blog Antioch Session. Antioch Session is a collective blog run by Zach Hoag and Scott Emergy and hosts a number of great writers all who are writing as a means to advance what they consider to be “creative Christianity” around three key areas:
Featured A Hidden Wholeness Chapter 3 – Sketchnotes and Discussion Questions We have been reading through Parker Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward and Undivided Life,” at our church lately and are loving it. I have been sharing our discussion notes each week (Week one and Week two can be found here). Here are the links for chapter three:
Convergent Friends Write the Vision: Quakers, Zines and Participatory Culture This is a synchroblog written for Quaker Voluntary Service, of which I am a board member. The theme is “Quakers and new media.” (Twitter Link #qvssynchroblog) “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed
Featured A Hidden Wholeness Chapter 2 – Sketchnotes Over the next ten weeks or so we at Camas Friends Church are working through Parker Palmer’s book, “A Hidden Wholeness: A Journey Toward an Undivided Life.” I will continue to post our discussion guides and the sketchnotes here for those who may be interested in using them for
Featured Sketchnotes from Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness” Chapter 1 We are reading through Quaker author Parker Palmer’s wonderful book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. As a part of my preparation for leading the group I am making sketchnotes of the chapters. Here are the sketchnotes for the prelude and chapter one and here are
Uncategorized Finding Healing After a Suicide I wrote an article last summer about some of the healing process I have been working on in relation to my step-dad’s suicide. Friends Journal picked up the article, redid a little of it and has published it this month in their issue on mental health. If you’d
Blog Entries A Convergent Model of Hope is Ready To Share I finished my dissertation, “A Convergent Model of Hope: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture,” last November. But it is finally rolling out so that it can be shared with others. I know it’s the case that dissertations aren’t always thought of as super interesting things
Featured Like Seeds Being Poured Out (Matthew 28:16-20) “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples
Featured Hope on a Tightrope Sermon #Sketchnotes Each week as I study, I take a lot of notes. Some of those notes I type into Evernote on my computer, and some of them I sketch out. The stuff that really stands out to me, the important quotes, and image-heavy ideas go down on paper. I love using
Featured Resurrection: Hope on a Tightrope (Matthew 28:1-10) “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.” (Matthew 28:1) A Little Hope I don’t know about you but I am in need of some hope this week. I have had enough death
Uncategorized Cornel West – Hope on a Tightrope “The vocation of the intellectual is to turn easy answers into critical questions and to put those critical questions to people with power.” “The quest for truth, the quest for the good, the quest for the beautiful, all require us to let suffering speak, let victims be visible, and demand
Featured Palm Sunday: Rivalry Encased in Death (Matthew 26:20-27:26) “So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be
Featured Death By Bread & Clothes Alone (Matthew 6:25-34) “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor
Featured On God & Money: Who and What is in Service to Whom? (Matthew 6) “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:23–24) The Splitting Apart This past week news broke that the Joel Osteen’
