“This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.” Rainer Maria Rilke  I pull up the sleeve on the sweatshirt my wife and mother are conspiring to burn and check to see if the scar is still abiding horizontally across my elbow. The scar ...READ MORE »

I am always touched deeply when I hear the song “At The Table” by Josh Garrels. This song uniquely travels through the relationship between the prodigal son and his father. Just as we can find ourselves in the parables that Jesus spoke, there are many places that we can find ourselves in the lyrics of this song. Perhaps the ...READ MORE »

As Millennials, we are accustomed to getting everything we want with the click of a button. With one click on Amazon, we have ice cream and batteries at our door. With one touch on our phone, we can see what every single one of our friends is doing on a Saturday night. With one swipe, we have date for ...READ MORE »

“We gather not only to sing but to also be sung to.” – Elliott Cherry 424 miles of highway. Car is packed, three songs stayed on repeat as I held tight to the lyrics that provided the constant reminder – His presence is a promise. I moved to a new city that day, and, while I thought my life was ...READ MORE »

The first years of my faith journey were chalk-full of simultaneous emotions, each an outcome of the newfound understanding of my relationship with God. I celebrated joy, contentment, and world-transcending peace. But also, I experienced the heavy reality that many People close to me were not in a relationship with God. For many years prior, my family’s financial strife ...READ MORE »

Ministry runs in my family in the way that military service runs in others. Most of my male relatives have been youth ministers, preachers, or missionaries at some point in their careers. My female relatives have been leaders in the church as well, and these days (I’m happy to say) are earning more formal recognition for their roles. I ...READ MORE »

I remember when I first gained a real comprehension of social justice. I was sitting on the lawn of a church in Manhattan, surrounded by the other post-grad young adults who were about to begin a year of faith-based service corps in New York City. We’d been told to read the book Nickel and Dimed in preparation for our ...READ MORE »

As Julie Andrews once sang, “let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…” Although I’m not sure that Sister Maria would have approved of this particular story. This is the story of how I parted ways with the church. And yet, it isn’t. Because I’m not sure I really did. I definitely didn’t part with ...READ MORE »