Second Church Steps

Grover taught me about the joy of Easter morning.  I knew the Easter story, see my previous blog post.  However, until someone is NOT where you expect them or someone is where you LEAST expect them -- only then can you step in the very soil of Easter joy.  Grover was an elder of a PCUSA church near the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky.  He was the "open-the-doors-in-the-morning" and "there-until-the-last-light-is-out" elder. His wife brought cookies every Sunday morning.  My children felt rather than knew this couple's ministry.  One morning, there weren't any cookie s because Grover's wife had died suddenly.  My daughter was astonished!  How could this happen? She insisted that we bring cookies the next Sunday.  Since Sunday School wasn't until HOURS after  two toddlers were awake, we began a year and a half practice of making sugar cookies for church on Sunday, yes every Sunday.  My three year old nudged us into taking up thi...

Sunday School Lessons can really stick! They inform; they empower! In the hands of a three year old they can create a  precocious theologian who announces on Holy Week that she doesn't understand what all of the fuss is about!  You see I, um...she, understood Easter; Easter is easy for a three year old.  “Jesus got dead.  They put him in a hole, and he got away.”  Out of the mouths of babes…  Perhaps this is an example of why Jesus said we should have the faith of a child (Matthew 18:2-4).  Yes, there are subtleties about HOW Jesus “got dead.” Was he not really dead? There have been crusades over who “they” might be and how did they put him into “a hole.” Where was the hole?  Then there is the argument/discussion about how “he got away.”     What did Jesus look like after “he got away?”  There is childlike humility in hearing the "what" of a story and living into it.   Don't get me wrong! Those ar...

Holy Promise People, Lent 2017, Second Presbyterian Church  My family and friends know that I am a little bit directional-ly impaired.  I’m  fine as long as the smart phone battery hangs in there, but if I forget to recharge…I could be circling 86 th street for quite a while! Life can feel like that sometimes.  There are distractions, obligations, self-imposed expectations, and competing priorities that can take focus away from the joy of a life lived in God .  Could that be why Lent is one of my favorite times of the church season?  Yes, I love the pageantry of Easter and the Christmas music, but there is something soothing and comforting about Lent that reorients me.   http://maiaduerr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/creditcard-trek.jpg Often people give something up for Lent as a sign of self-denial.  One year I had to have jaw surgery and gave up talking for Lent.  (Really!) I have friends that give up chocolate, sho...

Covenants are important and life giving moments in our lives as Christians.  They are moments of promise and faith.  They are moments of action and attention.  They  are important moments that have a unique beginning. These promises are not chores to check off or dates circled on a calendar; they are holy promises that begin with God.  They all begin with God choosing us and choosing to be in a relationship with us.  In return we are loved, claimed, and wanted.  This gives us the freedom to respond with truth, kindness, caring, and service to others. We learn about truth when we read God's book of hope and good news.  We care for God's people both our friends, neighbors and ourselves by participating in  Sunday School, Choir School, or VBS. We serve others by living as a people of promise. How do we live as  promise people?  We do it by remembering that we are HOLY PROMISE People  and lived the truth that so is our neigh...

(Spiritual Practices for Families: Giving Thanks) Where is the Love? In December, amidst the wrappings and the shouts of glee, we found a quiet time to come to the manger and contemplate the great Love that God sent, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Here, as sparkling Christmas lights give way to snow and rain and ice, as gathered family gives way to bill paying and schedule keeping, how might we hold on those manger moments when we embraced the Love that embraces us? In these more ordinary days, can we still see the light that leads us to Bethlehem, to the ordinary extraordinary places where Love shows up? Here is my invitation to you, and to your children:  Pause... in the middle of your "what's next" life... to see, hear, touch, smell, taste... all the amazing that is right here and now.  Point it out to one another like we might point out the twinkling lights on a Christmas tree.  Give thanks... for the warmth of the sweater, the wag of the do...

We made it! Christmas is over!  Well, not quite yet, it isn’t.  There are those pesky twelve days of Christmas.  The celebrating could go on and on, if we let it! Goodness, the tree is looking dry and empty without a load of boxes and bags underneath it. The ornaments that were hung with surprise, joy, and fondest memories now look somehow out of place.  Can we for one moment stop, and think about this?  Think about that first rush of joy when a new child is born, when you first really felt the presence of the living God in your life?  What about the first time a young Sunday School class looked at you in awe of the wonderful stories you were telling them?  That moment sparkled with hope that was bursting with possibility!  Here and now in the “ bleak mid-winter ” of post-New Years, to borrow from  Christina Rossetti and hymn 144 in the Presbyterian Hymnal Glory to God , we find ourselves in the sleep deprived, post-adrenaline rush, vi...

Be a Stable People The very best people                     Have the very best seats. The very best people                 Have the very best beds. The very best people                 Have the very best clothes. The very best people                 Have the very best, don’t you know? You see, they are the INN crowd                 Who were not sent away. They are the INN crowd,                 Who have somewhere to stay. They are the INN crowd,        ...