Six Months Quaker Preacher

A collection of 68 posts

Quotations

Berrigan on Prayer

This quote caught my attention today: And then there is the question of prayer, which consists for the most part in inisiting that God do for us what we are unwilling to do for one another. Resolve: Let’s do for one another what we would have God do for

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Becoming Thomas (John 20:19-29)

This is the text from my sermon this week. It was delivered within the context of joint worship at Camas Friends Church who invited Friends from Multnomah Meeting and Bridge City Meeting to join us in worship (we will be visiting their meeting house May 23rd). Isaac and Mary Penington_

Six Months Quaker Preacher

Easter: The First Day of New Creation (John 20:1-18)

This is my Easter sermon. Intro_ For me it was at a church I recently begun attending with my family back when I was back in Ohio when I was a kid. Our was a big, patchwork family. There are six kids on my mom’s side of my family.

Convergent Friends

New Convergent Friends Article (Quaker Studies)

Next time you find your way to a university library you should pick up the latest copy of Quaker Studies journal (Volume 14, Issue 2 March 2010).  My first journal article, “Convergent Friends: The Emergence of Postmodern Quakerism,” appears there. Here’s the abstract: Postmodernism is ushering in radical change

Six Months Quaker Preacher

When the Stones Fell Silent

“He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” (Luke 19:40) Today is Palm Sunday, the day we reflect on Jesus’ “triumphal” ride into Jerusalem. Ironically his ride isn’t really triumphant as much as it is parody; the king of Jews riding on

Practices

Preparing for Unprogrammed Worship in A Programmed (Quaker) Meeting

When I was hired as the pastor of Camas Friends one of the things that the elders told me was that they hoped to have unprogrammed (aka silent or open) worship quarterly. This was an attractive idea to me and I was glad they were willing to support this type

Church in Mission

Creating Liberated Spaces: Some Thoughts

Back in February, and on the dawn of Transfiguration Sunday, about 30 (?) folks piled into a Southeastern Portland home to share in a conversation being facilitated by two out of towners Eliacin Rosario-Cruz (Seattle) and Mark Van Steenwyk (Minnesota). The crowd was made up of a number of men and

Church in Mission

A Prayer for Those in Need

Here is a prayer we prayed one Sunday morning after reflecting on those who have great needs in our town. God of the broken, God of the wanderer, Christ who is without shelter, Surround those in deep need among us. Surround them and help us hear their cries for help.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.