I don’t remember being so nervous about a sermon. We had decided to try something different: to use a classic Christmas movie to illustrate our Advent sermons. We were going to kick off with “Elf”…and I can’t tell you how nervous I was that we would get it “right;” that we would find the right […]
Getting “Reel” for Advent
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and Cyndi and I got to spend ours with our daughter, Rachel, a minister in our Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination who is serving as the Dean of Spiritual Formation at Montreat College, a Christian school in Billy Graham country near Asheville, North Carolina. (In fact, Rachel lives literally next door […]
Saturday in the Sanctuary
This weekend we will once again move our Saturday service to the Sanctuary for those who would like to have their Sunday morning free to watch the Seahawks crush the Panthers. It’s worth noting that every week, our Saturday service is identical to our 10:45 am service, so if you normally come to 10:45 but […]
The Spirit Is Working
Sunday after service, a long-time member came up to me and said, “Wow, the Holy Spirit was really working this morning. Something is happening in our congregation. It feels like the days when we were worshiping in the gym!” For those of you who have come since 1994 (the last time we worshipped in the […]
Festival of Hope Overturns the Tables
We still have space available for the Women’s Breakfast! Reserve your seat now! Every November, the Gathering Place at Chapel Hill is filled with beautiful, fair trade products from around the world for Festival of Hope Weekend. For many of us, our Christmas shopping begins and ends at Festival of Hope. But Festival of Hope is […]
A festival of stories
Festival of Hope is about stories. It’s about craftsmen, artisans, farmers—people our God created and loves deeply. It’s about the power our purchasing decisions have to employ parents, empower women, and restore dignity to our brothers and sisters around the world. Over the years of hosting Festival of Hope, Chapel Hill people have been able […]
What I Meant to Say Was…
Sorry for the confusion! Last weekend when I challenged all of you to be “guerilla greeters,” it was apparently confusing for some. So, no—I did not mean “gorilla” as in “ape-like” or “simian.” I meant “guerilla” as in stealthy, alert…even a little sneaky. If you missed St. Andrews weekend, you are completely confused by now, […]
St. Andrews, Saints, and Seahawks
The first time I laid eyes on St. Andrews, Scotland, an immediate love affair began. I returned last summer for the umpteenth time…and it never gets old for me. I love the layout of the town, how its two main streets funnel you toward the ancient cathedral, which took 160 years to build! (King Robert […]
What courage!
In this world of 24-hour news cycles and short attention spans, something that happened ten days ago is SUCH old news. But I cannot allow a momentous answer to our prayers and fasting pass without one more comment. A week ago Friday, Pastor Andrew Brunson was in a Turkish court for the fourth time on […]
Our First Seahawk Saturday!
Three years ago we launched a Saturday night worship service called, cleverly, Saturday Night at Chapel Hill! It was a somewhat risky venture because, except for our Catholic friends, no church in the community has been able to sustain a Saturday night service. But we felt it was worth trying for a couple reasons. First, […]