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
Blog Entries Christ would not be Redeemer Today is the feast of Oscar Romero so as I think about his work today and pray for all those who are cruelly treated, those who do not have a voice of their own and those who long for God to make the world new, I am posting some of
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
Reviews Iconocast Podcast I’ve been really enjoying the first two episodes of the Iconocast and thought I’d share the link here for those of you interested in listening in. The podcast is put together by some of the fine folks behind the Jesus Manifesto site as well as Jarrod McKenna of
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.
The Cultural Simplicity in a World of Excess – John 12:1-8 This week on the pastor’s email list there has been a really long discussion around whether it is appropriate to boycott certain businesses. It all started when a pastor sent around a forward he’d received that claimed that a certain corporation had been working with the immigration enforcement
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
Featured 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 havent
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
Featured 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’
