Statement of Purpose (Part 2) February 3rd sermon

A few years ago I heard a recording of Martin Luther King, Jr. recalling some of the challenges he faced in the early days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. There were a lot of details of his story that stood out to me. Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr. was fresh out of…

Statement of Purpose (Part 1), January 27th Sermon

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. Aren’t there sometimes words or songs that are so familiar, so comfortable, that you can sink down in them, like a warm blanket? Have you had that…

Glimpse of Glory

When my parents were missionaries in Japan, they had colleagues that ran the gamut from liberal Presbyterians to conservative Southern Baptists, and while there were lots of differences, one that seemed most obvious  to my teenaged perspective was the differences when it came to alcohol. My parents enjoyed wine and beer, and always tucked little…

Family Trees (January 13th, 2013 sermon)

I know some people in this room can trace their genealogy back for centuries. I can’t go back that far in my own family tree—maybe four or five generations, with certainty, although there is a chance that one of my ancestors was on the crew of the pirate Jean Lafitte, in the early 1800s. The…

Starlight

When I was in about 6th grade, I used to go with some friends to a church group that met on Sunday evenings. Remember, I was living in Japan at this point, with my missionary parents, so I took public transportation to the church. Our house was just a few blocks away from the train…