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Christmas Chaos

The musician is sick. There is a mistake in the bulletin. The story I originally picked is better than the one I ended up choosing. I’m at church parsing out hymns to our subs, writing up check requests to pay them, revamping my story, and debating with Jayde if...

Quiet

Advent is a quiet season, meant for reflection, for glimpsing light in the darkness. This week we’ll host our annual Longest Night worship gathering.  This is a time for quiet, to claim the grief we feel this season, to sit in the darkness, to recognize the pain...

Advent Waiting

Advent is a season of preparation, of waiting.  For me this time of year is best celebrated by glimpsing lights in the dark, rainy nights of Portland. This is a time of stopping, of breathing.  It’s a starry night sky and the silence of the woods.  Advent is a hushed...

Gratitudes

I am thankful for my husband Jeff, who has been the most amazing partner in ministry for nearly 20 years now. I am thankful for our daughter Paige who sets the table, supervises the acolytes, and does a million other tasks to keep everything running smoothly. I am...

Conflicts

As many of us head to see family over the next week and month it can be a time of revisiting conflicts and old wounds.  Many people talk about churches as family. And while most folks use that language to express how people in churches care for each other, spend years...

Dynamic

At our annual gathering of church leadership last week one of our members who has been around this specific church a long time said that this was one of the most wonderful, dynamic times in the life of the faith community. As we talked about the future of our divided...