Gathering In Light

Exodus

The Ten Words of Love (Exodus 20)

This is the sermon I gave at Camas Friends Church on October 2, 2011 about the ten commandments. [First I asked some questions about people’s interactions with the ten commandments and we had a good time of sharing out of that. Then I shared a number of ten commandment-styled

Discernment

Practicing Discernment Together as a Church

About a month ago we began a Wednesday evening meeting at Camas Friends (the Quaker meeting I pastor). The goal of these meetings are to build our friendships with each other (so we eat together before the class begins), as well as add to our being a learning community. The

Blog Entries

Taking A Sabbath Rest

Yesterday during worship at Camas Friends Church, Brad Tricola preached on the Exodus 16 passage about Sabbath. His message was in part about just how difficult it is to live up to the ideal of sabbath, even the Hebrews continued to gather on the day they were to take off.

The Biblical

Questions and Complaints: The Wilderness School (Ex 16)

This is the message I gave at Camas Friends Church on September 18, 2011. Complaints. We pick up our story shortly after were we left off last week. The Hebrews have past their entrance exam, which was proctors by prof. Moses and his assistant Aaron, and now they have been

Featured

The Red Sea: From Obstacle to Opening (Exodus 14)

This is the text from the message I gave at Camas Friends Church September 11, 2011. The Experience of the Experience This past week we were at the beach. Searching for rocks. Lily and Mae scooped while Emily and I carefully picked. At first this was frustrating. It felt like

Quotations

John Greenleaf Whittier: The Eternal Goodness

The other evening I was fortunate enough to join some of our local unprogrammed Quaker friends in a meeting for worship. I needed and really appreciated the worship in silence. It is nice to be a Quaker pastor, who can show up and worship in a space where I do

Featured

Being Drawn Out: Rebel Midwives, Empires and Little Hebrew Babies (Exodus 1-2)

Here is my message from August 21, 2011 (slides can be found here). _a birth story How many of you have given birth or been present at a birth before? [I told Story about L’s birth and the power (for me) of her “being drawn out” of the womb]

The Biblical

The Res. Community (Pt. 5): The Things We Carry

This is the final message I gave a few months back on the resurrection community from John 21.This week we finish our series on the Resurrection Community by turning the last part of John 21 and the dialogue between Jesus and Peter: “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said

Featured

Uniformity, Religio & Solidarity (Psalm 133)

This is the message I gave during our meeting for worship on Sunday August 13, 2011. _religion and Norway On July 22, 2011, a 32-year-old man drove his car into the city centre of his hometown, Oslo Norway, near a number of government buildings. He was not out to file

Blog Entries

Reading the Bible for Transformation

George Fox once wrote: I saw also how people read the Scriptures without a right sense of them, and without duly applying them to their own state. ( QuakerPsalms p. 13) This past week I was at a group called GodPub and in conversation we started talking about the bible, what

Blog Entries

State of the Church: Camas Friends Church

I just posted our 2011 “State of the Church Report” on our meeting’s blog. You can read it here: http://wp.me/pzEU4-eh

The Biblical

The Company We Keep: Empathy and Reading the Bible Together (Acts 8)

This is the message I gave this past Sunday. _THE B.I.B.L.E. The Bible is, for better or for worse, one of the most influential documents in the history of the Western World. We sit here together in worship this morning largely because of the Bible. Many

Featured

The Res. Community Pt. 4: The Last Breakfast, or First Potluck (John 21)

This is the message I gave that is a part of a longer series on the resurrection community from a few weeks back. _The last breakfast on the beach Post Easter we’ve been talking about the res. appearances of Jesus. We thought it would be interesting to see what

The Political

GMO OMG! Jeremy Seifert’s New Sizzle Real

My friend Jeremy Seifert, the guy behind the popular documentary Dive!, which I have reviewed here in the past, is beginning work on a new documentary about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). I am really excited about the new project and have posted it a few times in various places, but

The Biblical

(Untitled)

_Introduction A couple weeks back we discussed how the resurrection community is a participatory community, that is that Jesus invited his disciples to bring some of their fish and add it to the pile that he brought. The work of the church is to be actively involved in participating in

Blog Entries

The Res. Community (Pt. 3): Success and The Famous Catch of John 21

This is the third part in a five-part series looking at the final resurrection appearances of Jesus in the book of John. The text this morning is the first part of John 21. _intro There’s a lot of silliness in this passage. It would be easy to write a

Blog Entries

Lord, Lord, Open Unto Me: Howard Thurman (Prayer)

I was recently given a prayer book from a friend in our meeting called Prayers from the Heart by Richard Foster. ((Books in this post use an affiliate code to a local, independent bookstore close to where I live in Portland.)) It’s a lovely collection of prayers, and the

Blog Entries

A Prayer of Interdependence

God of the body of Christ, organs and limbs, feet and hands, the weak and the strong, the broken and the suffering, we recognize our dependence on you, we see how you knit us together as one. We confess our own independence, our own individualism and self-centeredness. We too often

Featured

Celebrating Our Interdependence (1 Corinthians 12:12-26)

This is the text to the message I gave on July 3, 2011. _intro: (dis)membership I was reading in a magazine called the Christian Century the other day and they recently put out an issue that deals with issues related to church membership. The title of the main article

Prayers

Morning Prayer by Henry T. Hodgkin

I ran across this prayer from Quaker Henry T. Hodgkin (1877-1933) in the most recent Friends Journal issue on Pendle Hill: Firm when all round me is in flux and seething Strong when the knees are quivering and fail, Beat of my heart’s beat, energy of breathing, Over my

Quotations

On Love, Meekness and Watching Over Each Other (Isaac Penington 1667)

My friend Vail Palmer recently recommended to me to read Isaac Pennington’s book of letters. While I was at George Fox University this week for a conference on discernment and leadership I took the chance to visit the Quaker collection there and borrow the Pennington collection. This is the

The Biblical

The Res. Community Part 2: Finders, Seekers (Jn. 20)

This was my prepared message for worship last Sunday. It is the second in a series looking at what it means to be the church in relationship to the final resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospel of John. _profiles of Thomas the Seeker I don’t know about you

The Pastorate

The Resurrection Community Part 1: Standing in the Midst (John 20:19-23)

This was my prepared message for worship last Sunday. It is the first in a series looking at what it means to be the church in relationship to the final resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospel of John. _behind locked doors What is the first thing we can learn

Blog Entries

Short, Pithy, Deceased

Jake Bouma asked on twitter the other day: “Friends: Suggestions for short (100-200pgs), pithy books by deceased theologians?” Good question. I’ve been rolling this around a little while. Here are a few that come to mind. There are more of course, and I recognize some of the limitations of

Blog Entries

The Present Work of Atonement

Came across this quote today by one of my favorite theologians and it sums up in a really nice way some of what I talked about on Easter morning: “That Jesus died by crucifixion in first-century Palestine is as well established as any fact in his disputed life history. That