My inbox was jammed full Tuesday morning! After the wonderful early morning newsflash telling you all that Ellis and Rachel’s visa had been approved, your notes of praise, delight, relief…they all came flooding in. My poor email program must have had the digital equivalent of sore muscles after a hard workout! It was so fun […]
Read More… from So THAT‚ÄôS what Advent is supposed to feel like!
As many of you know, Cyndi and I bought a house last summer. It is a 1967 split-level that hasn’t been touched since it was built…including the original avocado green wool carpet! Even though we acquired it in August, we have not yet moved in because there is so much to be done…and we are […]
Last weekend marked the official start to the Advent season! It’s so exciting to see all of the decorations around the church and to hear the sounds of Christmas songs in our services. This is a special Advent for Aimee and me as it is our first in Gig Harbor. Although we have been here […]
OK, I am sheepishly now going to admit something to you: I got Advent wrong! Usually, the first Sunday in Advent falls after Thanksgiving and we went about our sermon planning and prep as if that were so. Only it wasn’t! We were early by one week. You’d think a “religious professional” would get that […]
It is perhaps ironic, certainly providential (we are Presbyterian after all), that this Thanksgiving weekend also marks the beginning of Advent, our month-long celebration in anticipation of the coming of Christ. Ironic/providential in that it is also a story of a young family unexpectedly compelled by their government to be away from their home in […]
I love Festival of Hope weekend. It is so fun to watch boxes of product arrive in the weeks leading up to the event, and hear our pricing volunteers “ooh” and “ahh” at scarves, necklaces, and handbags as we pull them out of the boxes. I love the way the weekend makes our church buzz […]
I have the pleasure of mentoring three young pastors-in-training every Tuesday morning. We cover a wide variety of topics that will better prepare them for a life of vocational Christian ministry—one example of our Beyond These Walls commitment to “Releasing Leaders.” This week, however, we were discussing a topic that, I promise you, never came […]
Have you ever felt that nudge? A friend, co-worker, family member, or someone you just met is talking, and you sense the conversation could take a spiritual turn. But what do you say? What don’t you say? How can you bring up God without shutting the connection down? About 150 of you been gathering for […]
Every year on the weekend prior to All Saints Day (the Christian version of Halloween!) we at Chapel Hill celebrate St. Andrews Sunday. This is a moment for us to look back at our Scottish roots and celebrate the lives of our spiritual ancestors. It is very Scottish—bagpipes and everything! (I know, it can sound like […]
Sometimes our default is to look around us and see the glass as half empty. The world is filled with brokenness and it doesn’t look like things are getting much better. It can be downright depressing, am I right? When I first met Joseph Bataille from World Relief Haiti, he talked about a similar experience […]