We describe our call as a church in 3 directions: UP, IN, and OUT. Each direction represents a relationship and an action. We live UP as a community of worship in relationship with God. We live IN as a community of discipleship in relationship with one another. And we live OUT as a community of […]
A Self-Confessed Bibliophile
I love books. My first job was for a bookshop. In fact, my wife and I (before we were married) spent five weeks one summer working for the bookshop at two of the biggest Christian festivals in the UK. This might sound great, until you realize that it required us to spend the whole time […]
A Reading People
It’s no coincidence that the rise of Protestantism coincided with the invention of the printing press. The availability of literature (particularly the Bible) caused an explosion of learning that led to a reevaluation of how we do church. Throughout the years, Christians have established that we are people of The Book, and literacy and learning […]
Overflow
Water draws many people to the Puget Sound every summer. Water both delights us in sport and beauty and can be terrifying in its depth and infiniteness. And God chose the water of baptism as a salvation image. We have experienced an overflow of water in every way here at Chapel Hill—in the beauty of […]
A Great Listener
“The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made them both.” (Proverbs 20:12 ESV) When Megan and I first interviewed at Chapel Hill, one of the things we did was sit down with Pastor John Thomas and got to know him a little. At the time I had no idea what his role […]
How did you end up becoming a part of a church for the first time?
I went to church as a child, but for most of my teenage years, church didn’t figure in my life. I had a faith in Jesus… of sorts. It mostly consisted of praying to ask for forgiveness for all the wrong things I had done that day, even though I knew I would do most […]
Read More… from How did you end up becoming a part of a church for the first time?
A Busy Pace
Well, Pastor Mark left for his sabbatical on Monday, and as you can imagine the staff are now all lounging around in the church offices, sipping mai tai’s and watching what’s left of the World Cup. Not quite. Actually, as I sat in meetings with staff yesterday I asked folks whether they thought the pace […]
New Pastor!
As you know, we have been prayerfully seeking the person who will fill the role of Pastor for Renewal at Chapel Hill. Our Pastor’s Nominating Committee (PNC) has dedicated months of searching and praying that God would lead us to the right person. I am pleased to announce that the PNC completed its search and […]
Just to clarify…
You may have heard about a recent ruling by the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) on gay marriage. Chapel Hill is a church in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) denomination, not the PCUSA. The EPC, and by extension Chapel Hill, has not changed their position on marriage and continues to affirm traditional marriage between a man […]
EPC General Assembly
Greetings from Knoxville: It is early morning and I am writing this as I prepare to leave for the opening of our first morning of business at the 34th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, our annual “family reunion.” I ate lunch and caught up with Jeremy Vaccaro yesterday. I chatted with Moderator Bill […]