We’ve moved to a new phase of Fall.  The leaves on the trees have fallen.  Nature’s window dressing has come down.  Every year it seems it happens so quickly.  One day you are enjoying the oranges and reds and yellows and the next time you look around you see the outlines of the branches… Read More »

One of my favorite “new” hymns is “Take My Gifts”. Take my gifts and let me love you, God who first of all loved me, gave me light and food and shelter, gave me life and set me free, now because your love has touched me, I have love to give away, now the bread… Read More »

          How and where we give our charitable contributions has changed over the decades.  There was a time when most families primarily gave money in the “charitable” category to the church.  The church has long been custodian of people’s money so that the real needs of people in their community and the world are met.  The… Read More »

            You know you have been around the life of a church a long time when words like chancel, narthex, Trinity, pledge don’t make you pause and wonder what is going on.  One of those words, “pledge”, is a fixture of many churches each year.  Longtime members know what it is all about.  Some church… Read More »

Although it is our tradition to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion primarily at worship on the first Sunday of each month, the Table remains central to our identity.  We are people who have been invited to sit with Jesus at a table fellowship and receive from him the blessing of our lives.  We are… Read More »

I love autumn.  I love October in particular.  It is a month that offers clear blue skies, crisp air, and a color palate that unfolds gradually, signaling the change in season. Even though slowing down is out of the question because fall also heralds the holiday season, it is a time to settle into a… Read More »

This Saturday, October 8, is the 22st Anniversary of my Ordination into Christian Ministry.  What a wonderful journey this has been and continues to be.  I have been blessed beyond measure.  In her introduction to a favorite novel, the late writer Phyllis Tickle wrote something to the effect:  we, who call ourselves Christians, are all… Read More »

In the 1930s the congregation of Sunnyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania decided to embrace a feeling of ecumenism popular in the wider church of that time.  They instituted the first Communion service to be designated Worldwide Communion Sunday on the first Sunday of October.  It would be a time to remember Christians around the… Read More »

This past Sunday I used a prayer written by Thomas Merton (1915-1968), an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, and mystic. The words of this prayer always resound with me at various times in my life. It was a prayer our Conference Minister, John Deckenback, would occasionally offer before we began a particularly complicated committee meeting.… Read More »

Young Thoughts From the corner of Hillside and Crescent As Labor Day weekend draws near with all the excitement that is characteristic of Greenbelt, I have been thinking about the story of workers in our country.  Some of those reflections will be shared in the sermon on September 4. In Psalm 137:13-14 we read “for… Read More »