Gathering In Light

Six Months Quaker Preacher

The Three Prodigals – Luke 15:11-32

This is the sermon from last week. prodigal 1 spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant : prodigal habits die hard. 2 having or giving something on a lavish scale : the dessert was crunchy with brown sugar and prodigal with whipped cream. See note at profuse. This was broken

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Different Days Off

We decided to experiment with changing my days off, so I worked on Monday and am planning on taking Friday off. I have been taking Mondays off since I began pastoring last May. While it’s been really nice to have a free day where pressure from Sunday’s preparation

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Fast/Face

I’ve been scaling back my time on twitter for sometime; I nearly deleted the account a month ago but had too many friends ask me not to do it so I reconsidered. Now I checked only irregularly and mostly use an autopost type feature to place updates there. I

Six Months Quaker Preacher

A Beginning and an Ending

Today was “one of those days.” That’s what I told the barista at the local coffee shop and that’s how I felt. It just seemed like I kept spinning my wheels all day. At the end of the work day I prayed, “God, where was your Light at

Featured

The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal? (Quaker Life Article)

Quaker Life Magazine published an article of mine called “The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal?” in their January/February 2010 issue. A number of people have asked for me to share it with them so they could read it, so I checked with the editor of QL, Katie Terrell, and

Blog Entries

Helping the World? Get Fuzzy

Found this today in the paper. I love it. I feel like I know so many people who live out of this reality, including myself. It’s a good parody and a good reminder as well. From Get Fuzzy.

Six Months Quaker Preacher

The 39 Steps at Portland Center Stage

This past Friday Emily and I were gifted with some tickets to the Portland Center Stage theater to watch the remake of Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps.” At first we thought the night was going to be a bust. When we got to the playhouse Emily had our 3 mo.

Reviews

Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices (Pre-Order Our New Book!)

As many of you know I have been on an editorial board of young Quakers for that past couple years working on a book that collects writings from Quakers around the world. The book was edited by Angelina Conti, Cara Curtis, Harriet Hart, Sarah Katreen Hoggatt, Evelyn Jadin, John Epur

Practices

Hitting the Brakes

Even though I still intend on following my six-month project on being a Quaker minister, I’ve been slowing down on my blogging as part of my need to hit the brakes on all things that pull me away from other duties. This has included my internet usage, though I

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Those Who Scatter and The One Who Gathers (Luke 13:31-35)

Here’s my sermon for Lent week 2. All of you are aware of the fact that a few weeks ago we buried a women from AA. That week while I was preparing a few words to share with those at the memorial service I wrote this: “I haven’t

Practices

Lections

During our elder’s meeting a few weeks back I presented a calendar for the year that included e basic themes I am interested in covering in preaching for 2010, along with the days when we will have unprogrammed worship and a few other special days in the mix. Part

Six Months Quaker Preacher

No, Lord.

Lent is upon us and I’m working out what it means for me to be awake and aware of Christ’s Light not just within but all around. One of the things that keeps me from this is the constant speed at which I move from thing to thing.

Reviews

Missions by the Spirit by Ron Stansell (Quaker Missions)

Quaker Missiologist Ron Stansell has a new book coming out this month from Barclay Press called Missions By the Spirit. My review of the book is posted there if you have interest in getting a brief overview. I recommend the book to all of you who are interested in missions

Prayer

Thou

Thou Whom I do not know But Whose I am. Thou Whom I do not comprehend But Who has dedicated me To my fate. Thou -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings p.214-215

Lent

Ash Wednesday Prayer Service

Today has been great. We had a really great meeting with the Camas-Washougal Homelessness Task Force this afternoon. A visitor from New Life Friends Church came and talked to us about a variety of ministries they are doing and some of the nuts and bolts of how to go about

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Connecting with M

This past Sunday was a great day. It was a lot of fun having Eliacin Rosario-Cruz and family and Mark van Steenwyk visit our meeting (not to mention go to their discussion on liberated spaces in Portland the evening before). We had a nice time going out to lunch at

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Transfiguration, Zombies and Being Fully Awake (Luke 9:28-36)

Last week we talked about making peace with the earth and part of what is needed in order to do that is to have a conversion where we go through the process of blindness to gaining “eyes to see.” That we need eyes to see the beauty in the world

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Working in Established Congregations

I had a conversation yesterday that reminded me of something I hadn’t written about. Going through grad school I was pretty sure that I would end up planting a church or just teaching Quaker theology or a little of both. The thought of working in an established congregation wasn’

Six Months Quaker Preacher

My Very Own False Advisers

Ryan, my doctoral adviser, sent this to me this morning, and I confess I had a good chuckle over the fact that all three of my PhD committee members are considered false teachers: “It’s  common to see the promotion of false teachers from the Emerging Church  Movement such as

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Life is a Miracle: Making Peace with All Things (Col. 1:15-23)

This is my sermon from this past Sunday on making peace with the earth. First A Confession: This is not a topic I have not always cared about. I am no scientist. I am a total hack when it comes to gardening at this point. I still have quite a

Six Months Quaker Preacher

(Not A) Golden Mouth

I’m hoping some day preaching becomes the kind fluid movement for me that other people in their professions seem to acquire with their skills of necessity. You know, where the person is so keyed in that it doesn’t even look like they’re doing what they are doing?

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Lifestyle

I’ve been thinking about my lifestyle a lot lately. One reason for this is that I’ve recently had trouble with my back and neck and have suffered from some pretty intense tension headaches. I started going to the chiropractor about a month ago and that has helped some

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Can Quakers Plan?

I never used to be big on planning ahead. In undergrad I was the guy working on papers through the night and then jogging to class with a wet ink on a newly printed research paper. My grades showed for it. Then I got married and went to grad school.

Green

On Earth As it is in Heaven

This is the last week for peace month at Camas Friends even though January officially ended a couple days ago. I thought why not extend it just a little longer so we can focus on making peace with the earth? To get things started off properly I decided to take

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Feeding Sheep With Steady Diets of This and That

I’ve missed a few days of posting for my series (I try to post on the days I work) but I’m back on it.  I last wrote about my full weekend, and was it ever full?! Here are a few highlights. I was approved to be on the