It’s time to tackle the pint-sized elephant in the room: This church I am working with for the month of August is tiny. In fact, it’s so small that on July 1st it entered into a “cooperative parish” with another nearby church. Basically, that just means that two small churches share one ordained elder who splits her time between the two congregations. In theory, the churches should have joint committees and merged ministries and the like. In practice, the two churches have yet to really integrate their organizational structure, leaving my pastor with twice as many meetings to attend, twice as many budget issues to deal with, and half as much sleep. Continue reading
Category Archives: Experiences
OK, So Three Pastors Walk Into a Grocery Store…
Note: I will use blog posts to talk about significant events, and let the picture slideshows tell the rest of the story…
A couple of things. First of all, only 4 days into my grand journey, I have discovered an indisputable truth: Wegman’s Grocery Store in New York is the most incredible creation ever. It must have been divinely inspired, because it is absolutely heavenly. I haven’t even looked at the rest of the grocery store, but apparently you can get food items there that are virtually non-existent elsewhere. Continue reading
Methodism 101
I have arrived in beautiful Lakewood, NY. This marks the closest I have ever been to the Great Lakes – in fact, I pulled off the highway to see Lake Erie up close and personal. Also, I didn’t think the change coming from Tennessee to New York would be an increase in trees, but I swear I have never seen such an endless expanse of forest as I did in the last 30 miles to Lakewood. Continue reading
An Embodied Faith?
Five days. In five days, I set off for Lakewood, New York, for the first leg of my journey. I can hardly believe that the crazy fantasy of one year ago has turned into a concrete reality. In final preparation, I’m about to sell off all of my childhood belongings in a massive two-day yard sale. Hopefully I won’t have a breakdown over the Pokémon and Pogs… Continue reading
The Sound of Silence
“Tonight, we will be singing short musical responses, repeating them over and over. The repetition of a short phrase helps to quiet the chatter of our monkey brains so that we can go deeper into our hearts and souls. We encourage you to try the Latin texts, since the simple and clear vowels help to create beautiful and calm music, but if you want to sing the English translation, that will be just fine.”
That is the leader of the first Taizé service I have ever taken part in. Taizé (teh-ZAY) is a small ecumenical monastic order in Burgundy, France that reaches out to any Christian communities that want to provide a “less busy” worship service for Christians of a contemplative bent. Continue reading
Life Reconciling 