CDC Siblings Gather
Last Thursday through Saturday, five of us from CMC represented the congregation at the Central District Conference annual meeting. Our biennial theme is “Listen! Wisdom is Calling.” I have long appreciated that the conference sees its congregations, in the words of a key document, as “something like a family of…
Preparing For Another Guest
Today the CMC support team for Keilin received word that Keilin gave birth to her daughter, Amor (which means Love). Keilin was an asylum seeker from Venezuela and lived in our church apartment with her four-year-old son Gerald from January to April. She made the difficult decision to leave the…
A Missing Link
Last summer, leaders from Central District Conference (CDC) had a retreat to determine the conference theme for the next two years. We landed on Wisdom. That’s Wisdom with a capital W, as in the name given the feminine character in Proverbs 8 who raises her voice “at the topmost heights,…
Expecting Emmanuel
Advent came a bit early this year. This past Sunday Mark and I shared the sermon to preview our Advent theme and give some commentary on the foundational text for the season – The Gospel of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. It includes five women, each with outsider status. This coming…
Creative Faith and Uncertainty
Today’s blog is from Ben Rudeen Kreider. It’s the final week of his summer pastoral internship and he’ll also be preaching this Sunday. In a short seminary course on Black church traditions related to land, food, and racial agency, Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III shared a story. When he was…
Asking Questions, Taking Responsibility
by CMC Pastoral Intern Ben Rudeen Kreider This past Sunday pastor Joel preached on the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. Joel wondered if its main message might not be for us to simply be Good Samaritans ourselves but to see the places we are in need, dependent…
Incarnatio continua
The word incarnation captures well the mystery of Advent and Christmas. Through incarnation, the Divine takes on flesh, and becomes a touchable presence. Western Christianity has emphasized the uniqueness of Jesus as the incarnate One, an outpouring and overflowing of the love of the Father/Mother/Source of All Being. Eastern Christianity…
Incarnatio continua
The word incarnation captures well the mystery of Advent and Christmas. Through incarnation, the Divine takes on flesh, and becomes a touchable presence. Western Christianity has emphasized the uniqueness of Jesus as the incarnate One, an outpouring and overflowing of the love of the Father/Mother/Source of All Being. Eastern Christianity…
Advent and the Interior
Nobody knows what time of year Jesus was actually born. But we in our climate zone enter the season of wakefulness and watchfulness – Advent –the time of year when the energy of trees has been drawn down into the roots. After catching photons from the sun all summer,…
“Blessed”
Being ‘blessed’ is theologically complicated. That’s what we more or less decided during our recent Sunday school discussion of Drew Hart’s book Trouble I’ve Seen: changing the way the church views racism. How many of our ‘blessings’ are simply consequences of injustice? We are indeed blessed, although it’s up to…
