Selected Thoughts from Pastor Frank Pennington
At the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge

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Topic List

A: achievement, Advent, age, altruism, anger, answers, anxiety

B: baptism, belief, Bible, blessing

C: change, children, Christmas, church, communion, community, compassion, confession, confidence, confirmation, congregation, covenant, creation, crisis

D: depression, differences, discipline, diversity, doubt

E: Easter, education, emergency, Emmanuel, emotions, entertainment, epiphany, eternal life, evil

F: failure, faith, family, fear, fellowship, forgiveness, freedom, fun, future

G: gardens, giving, goals, God, grace, greatness, grief

H: happiness, healing, history, hope, humility

I: image of God, injustice, inspiration

J: Jesus, joy, justice, judgment

K: kindness

L: labels, laughter, leadership, Lent, life, love

M: magic, messengers, ministry, miracles, mission, mistakes, money, mystery

N: nation, neighbors

O: optimism

P: pain, Palm Sunday, parables, parents, patience, peace, Pentecost, Peter, pilgrims, poverty, power, prayer, praise, preaching, pride, promise, prophet

R: redemption, repentance, respect, reverence, reward, risk

S: science, security, sin, skepticism, sophistication, spirit, strength

T: tears, terror/ terrorism, Thanksgiving, time, tradition, trinity, trust

U: United Church of Christ

V: values, vision, vocation

W: welcome, wilderness, winning, wisdom, witness, work, worship

A

Achievement

• In a faith sense, we aren't the sum of our achievements but the measure of the heart we bring to our striving. (8/6/2000)

Advent

• When we are looking for Advent we find that life breathes not with the shallow breathing of anxious, stressed lives but with the deep, bold breath of God. (11/30/97)
• We can unpack Christmas over these next few weeks, just as we neatly and lovingly unpack the ornaments ... we place on our trees. But will we prepare for a Messiah who chooses to show us his power in the guise of vulnerability? Will we allow ourselves in the days ahead to be led to the foot of a cross? (12/7/97)
• How am I clearing the way for the arrival of the "Prince of Peace"? What messages have my kids been getting about my spiritual depth and resolve? How have I been a spiritual mentor for those with whom I share my life? (12/6/98)
• Within the first awakening hour of each day of Advent, give someone a gift. Comfort someone. See what happens. Tell the person next to you that looks literally thrown together that they look nice. Even if they don’t you aren’t lying. Just imagine you are seeing them as God does. (11/28/99)
• Will we succumb to the loudest voice or will we anticipate the voice of God? (11/30/2003)
• Advent is about how we prepare to wait and how we find the promise, not in our quest for security and certainty, but in our courage to seek the truth in mystery and seek sustenance even in the wilderness. (12/7/2003)

Age

• Well, how old are you? Age is only a curse if you let it be. After all, age allows for the essence of a moment. Anyway, who is older than God?? The age thing? God’s been there and done that. Let God help you find the blessing just as he did with Abram and Sarai. (6/6/99)
• We can't stop ourselves from growing old, but we never have to be old because we never run out of promise. (2/24/2002)

Altruism

• Altruism is that frontier beyond enlightened self-interest. It's not a frontier we go to because it's fun or self-serving but because we are strong as Christians and needed there. (4/27/97)
• We think that the issues drive the allegiances, but our allegiance to Christ drives how we frame the issues. (7/1/2001)

Anger

• Holding a grudge was not Jesus' way. Grudges are not legitimate alternatives at life's cross points. Jesus' anger was the kind which not only named the tyrannies, but was ready to invest in correcting them. . . For Jesus, anger was never the opposite of hope. Anger isn't meant to be a final declaration but a prelude for "change." (3/2/97) (Also see forgiveness.)
• . . . if you are angry all the time, then you can't minister, and ministry is what you are supposed to do. (3/26/2000)
• . . . we are . . . stewards of what we express. . . When Jesus overturned the tables in the Temple, he was passionate about something important. Passion is a gift. Anger is a sacred trust. (3/26/2000)
• Will stones thrown in anger ever change minds quicker than shared bread . . .? (1/7/2001)
• Moral outrage is appropriate. . .but so are reasonableness and perspective. (9/1/2002)
• We either steward our anger or else it ends up controlling us. (3/23/2003)

Answers

• . . . more than answers, what we need in life is companionship and mentors. (12/24/97)
• There is one area in which it pays not to be rock solid certain; we should never be so certain of ourselves -- either with respect to our goodness or our lack of value -- that we no longer listen for the One who knows us better than we know ourselves -- the One who has been in the boat with us all along! (2/8/98)
• Why do I think I’m the only one who has the answers worth considering? (2/29/2004)

Anxiety

• If I feel things are terrible, they will be. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we see the prospect of the future only through the lens of our own anxiety, we endorse failure before it happens. (9/28/97) (Also see Time.)
• We don't have to get it right all the time; if our heart's in the right place God will make it right in the end. If we are engaged in mission, the Second Coming will take care of itself! So don't be anxious. (11/11/2001)
• Perhaps we draw the closest to God when God seems to expect the most from us. (2/24/2002)
• The antidote for weariness is prayer. Prayer is simply asking God to walk alongside. (2/9/2003)

Baptism

• What baptism means is that the future is no longer the rote summary of the past. What baptism means is that there is none of us beyond the need of refreshing waters. (1/7/2001)
• The early Church understood that everyone who was baptised was called into ministry. (6/3/2001)
• Will God reject me because I've been sprinkled and not dunked? A God that narrow needs OUR prayers. (6/10/2001)
• As a Christian, if you are to make one resolution this year, resolve in your personal life, in your corporate life, and in your social and family life, to bring the spirit of baptism to the year’s moments. (1/11/2004)

Belief

• If rapid change is an issue because of what we feel it imposes on us from outside, then what we believe internally is a key issue, as well. The root word for belief is the same root as the word "cherish." So, in a way, what we believe . . . is in effect what we cherish . . . what we hold dear . . . what is of integral value. (5/11/97)
• . . . what shapes us as Christians isn't simply what we believe, but how we behave because of what we believe. There is a dynamic relationship, then, between beliefs and action. (2/1/98) (Also see faith.)
• We can’t love God only on the mountain top. God needs our companionship in the valleys, too. But we are never quite as certain in the valleys are we - as rock solid. The word "belief" though, has everything to do with what we yearn or long for. We don’t have to be doubt-free to have convictions. (2/14/99)
• We can't be Christians by just believing in Jesus any more than believing in Joe Paterno makes you a great football player. Christians have to show up for practice. We have to learn the plays. (2/6/2000)
• Many people no longer include God in the big questions . . . Why is it that we uncritically expect the actions of God to be rational on our terms? (3/2/2003)

Bible

• Christians believe that the Bible isn't a series of books about what God said, but what about God did. It's not a book of nice sayings but a record of powerful sojourn -- people led beyond themselves and led to others by what, alone, they couldn't imagine to be true, but is! (2/22/98)
• . . . sometimes we just need to risk being wrong in order to be true. For those who read the Bible as if it’s a textbook, perhaps it helps to expand the envelope a bit to recognize that the Bible is the track record of a God who doesn’t abandon humanity in the midst of trial and error. God is willing to go there with us. (1/17/99)

Blessing

• We aren't just blessed with easy times, and I'm certain easy times all the time would not be a "blessing" anyway. (5/24/98)
• A simple way to understand what a blessing is, is that it is a moment in time bearing the clear identity of God’s remarque. We have to look for it and we have to know what to look for. We can’t simply look to those places where we are happy or where we have been the receivers. Sometimes to be blessed is to be disturbed - troubled for all the right reasons - and to be able to find ourselves in the context where our giving matters, knowing it is more blessed to give than to receive, as counter intuitive as that seems. To be blessed is to know God’s fullness and to sense that the emptiness will never be the same again. To experience a blessing isn’t about receiving protection, but about a profound realization of how well God has equipped us. It is to be consecrated - to receive God’s care for ministry. (1/31/99)
• I think the church needs to say more about blessings. It's not just what precedes dinner or follows a good sneeze. A blessing, sometimes, is how God wakes up creation, and along the way, wakes us up, too. (3/19/2000)

Change

• There's a joke that goes, "How many church people does it take to change a light bulb?" " Change? Change? Why, my grandfather installed that light bulb!" (2/29/2002)

Children

• It's so hard to work our way through the distinctions between having children "fit in" and empowering them to make their mark. It's hard to discern how much is too much, whether we're talking about "stuff" or time committed to too many things. (5/14/2000)
• The disciples didn't want kids around Jesus because they thought: (1) Children had nothing to offer (2) Children would spoil the dignity of the moment in a religion in which order was more important than spirituality (3) Children around Jesus this time would send a message that all children were welcome to be with Jesus and how could the disciples manage that! Jesus smiles and says … Hey, these issues say much more about your issues with children than they do about God's issues with children, so let 'em come! We need to ask the question, what about the authentic experience of this place which allows our children at an appropriate developmental level for each of them, to experience God's welcome through Christ. (9/24/2000)
• Jesus . . . took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me." It seems to me that - while an awesome task - for Christians there is no child not entrusted to our care. (9/24/2000)
• Tell me, is there ever a borning cry that fails to elicit from God, "You are my beloved"? Is there any child in whom the Word is not made flesh? (1/7/2001)

Christmas

• Christmas Eve isn't about your expectations or mine, but a revolution of the heart. . . . It's about not allowing our tiredness to short circuit our awe, or permitting our worldliness to cancel out our sense of wonder. (12/24/97)
• Tomorrow is almost today -- and it is Christmas and its face is the face of Jesus, the face of hope. I pray that your home will become a "Bethlehem" -- "house of bread" -- a place of nourishment. (12/24/97)
• If we look beyond self-interest, toward Bethlehem, we will see Christ. We need the currents of Christian formation to miraculously move us in many directions. Advent is about God’s venture capital. Mary… You… Me. Do you believe in your heart that God is doing great things? Are you open to the extraordinary? (12/19/99)
• Hope stirs at Christmas, just as it does at Easter, and whenever hope stirs we are meant to stir, as well. (12/2/00)
• Maybe we prepare not just by moving forward but by listening through a stilled silence for the subtle word. Maybe we prepare as we seek the majesty not just in mastery but in vulnerability, too. (12/9/00)
• We can only imagine how Mary and Joseph felt. No well-lit maternity unit. No attending physician and nurses to offer reassurance. A child startled into reality embraced by cool, night air. A mother who struggles against her own pain, to comfort an infant fresh from her tired body, born to refresh a tired, sleeping world. Joseph, who as with me, wonders over his place in it, and yet, feels her warmth as he tenderly strokes Mary's face. He will, as with many new fathers, step outside and look up at that first twinkling night sky and see in the stars, the face of God. Stars, too, hold the darkness back, just barely hold it back but hold it back just enough. The only thing "state of the art" in this story, is God's love. (12/24/2000)

Church

• The church is not the sanctuary for the saints as much as it is a laboratory school for imperfect Christians. Sometimes we are the shepherd who seeks after the lost sheep and sometimes we are the lost sheep who is on the receiving end of the seeking. Either way, and it will be both ways, our spiritual growth is the unifying theme. (9/5/99)
• In the vital church, "showing" is as important as "telling." (5/21/2000)
• "Church" for us isn't a building but an attitude, a walk and a way. It's always been that way, and this is what we affirm in the sacrament of baptism at whatever age it happens. (6/23/2002)
• Is the church a perfect institution? Of course not. I maintain, however, that a major institution stewarded by lay ministers as effective as most churches tend to be, is miraculous. (6/1/2003)

Communion

• . . . when we break bread . . . remember that while we may feel helpless in the face of the prospect of changing the world, nevertheless the change in ourselves is the promise and the hope. Strength and brokenness sounds like a paradox, but it's what Communion is about. (2/1/98)
• … How is "the Word made flesh" for you in our time? Where is the wisdom of the "Word" more perceptive than the world’s casual wisdom for you? For you, where are the judgment issues – the issues demanding your attention? If the Word became flesh and lived among us, then is it any more demanding a miracle to believe that the Word is equally with us now? If this flesh is sacred, is there any flesh which is not? If this innocence is worth uplifting in song and prayer and practice, are we able to remain silent in the face of the trampling of innocence anywhere? (1/2/2000) Also see Mission.
• The fact is that there is not enough virtue in any of us to warrant this feast, but there is enough of the love of God to assure it. (8/5/2001)
• May we yearn to grow more than we doubt. May we break open bread to nourish ourselves and others rather than fret that the world is not devoting itself to making us happy. May we gladly drink from the cup of Christ's promise around a table that welcomes all and nourishes all. May we not leave this time of worship but rather carry it forward in our hearts . . . (10/7/2001)
• As fresh as the bread we break today around ancient stories of an alive faith, our ministries through learning and teaching must be kept fresh . . . As you live the story, the story lives through you. (6/2/2002)

Community

• We can get information about God in Newsweek and on the Internet, but community is where faith is formed. Christian community is about relationships and mutual care and being connected. (4/27/97)
• An embrace with God takes two - and a community which helps us remember how it's done. (11/16/97)
• . . . the thought that we can somehow worship God in a faithful integral way while disregarding the social implications of the Gospel just isn't biblical. (1/25/98)
• Community isn't "live and let live." Community isn't a benign like-mindedness, either. Certainly, community is about bonding within the circle of affection, but it is also about the will to share across the chasms of difference. (5/18/2003)
• We flourish in Divine dependency. We cannot bear fruit in isolation. (5/18/2003)

Compassion

• You know, people came to think of Jesus as God's son not because he was always telling them that's who he was, but through their awe at how compassionate he was. (5/7/2000)

Confession

• We will stray off course. We won't get it right all the time, but the appropriate Christian response to this natural fact is not resignation or rationalization but confession. (6/28/98) (Also see forgiveness.)

Confidence

• A lack of confidence is often called a "failure of nerve," but what it really is . . . is a failure of trust; whatever we say, we are not trusting God at God's Word. And we are not trusting ourselves. (11/16/97)
• What many of us see as self confidence is merely the euphoria accompanying the latest success story. True confidence, however, is what gets us through the chronic absence of successes. None of us escapes these times. True confidence isn’t about the absence of frailty but about allowing for the full presence of God. (10/24/99)

Confirmation

• Confirmation doesn't make a mature Christian. Spiritual maturation happens in lifelong contexts, believe me. What we call "Confirmation" is really one of many reference points. (6/7/98)

Congregation

• Throughout my ministry, I have had people -- some very pious -- who have told me that they can be Christian without having a church connection. I think these people can feel spiritual without church and "behave" Christian and remain disconnected, but to become fully integrated and whole as a Christian requires a larger congregation than a congregation of "me." (4/27/97)

Covenant

• . . . covenant is about God calling us . . . where we feel neither very prepared nor very confident. (6/29/97)
• A covenant isn’t a contract. A contract is an agreement in place to protect the interests of the parties involved. It’s a safety net. A covenant is an affirmation of the concern one has for the other, not for the sake of self interest, but for the sake of the whole relationship. It is a spring board. There is no coercive force here, only choice and willfulness. Covenant is about God’s courtship. Jesus of Nazareth, for us, is the pivotal expression. God doesn’t yell at us. God calls out to us. (4/25/99)
• Covenant is about the dynamic promise that two parties choose to willfully bring their very best to the adventure. And it is an adventure because life is either that or else it is nothing. (3/12/2000)

Creation

• At each point of creation, God declares, "This is good!" Now, would a video cam present at creation have picked those words up? Does a parent who caresses a sleeping daughter's forehead literally have to say, "I love you"? (6/9/2002)

Crisis

• Serenity is what we bring to crisis, not what we get because crisis doesn't exist . . . (6/29/97)
• Faith is about the promise that we find ourselves, oftentimes, where we wouldn't choose to go, and in places where we doubt our own capacity for leadership. Like reluctant Jonah, we go to the places of deep need and deep hurt and we find God there. (1/23/2000)
• Every crisis for a Christian is an opportunity, as much as a danger, in that it challenges us to explore our core values. (5/28/2001)
• God wouldn't leave Israel with just her songs of lament. (8/19/2001)
• Sometimes, I know, it is difficult to think beyond the current crisis. The front pages of our newspapers can take on the weight of gospel. What we hear from the pundits can be given the credence of literal truth. We wait to be told what we can’t possibly accomplish and what we can’t conceivably attempt. After all, if the world tells us “WE CAN’T” then we are off of the hook! (11/23/2003)

Depression

• To be depressed is to conclude "I am helpless."  But "I am helpless" isn’t biblical. It isn’t faithful. There is no sin in feeling it but it is never a healthy baseline or the final word. (5/16/99)
• Sometimes it rained on Jesus too. When the best case scenario wilts on you, do you wilt too? (7/27/2003)

Differences

• We don't have to be standing in exactly the same place to see the same horizon. God is big enough so that difference doesn't have to be reduced to division. (5/31/98)
• Can we be big enough for a really big God? Why do we so often reduce God to the scope of our differences? (5/31/98)
• Our job is not to "clone" Christians so that we all look and sound alike, but to model a faith that is dynamic, evolving and fundamentally central to full and contributing lives. (8/12/2001)

Discipline

• Christian community isn't meant to be an elective but a life-long discipline. It sort of like the difference between thinking about running every morning and running! (4/27/97)
• The fact is we can get along without a disciplined spirituality but I'm convinced we can't flourish without it. We become weary and distracted. We experience memory loss. We forget that it is God working in us and not just we alone. (9/14/97)
• The real struggle, in an age such as ours, is to be open to a Creator who apparently courts us rather than chooses to coerce us. (4/6/2003)

Diversity

• We don't all have to be on the same spot to look in the same direction. (5/19/2002)

Doubt

• Doubts are never faith's enemies - the only enemy of faith is the unwillingness to care. (4/30/2000)
• Closed doors don't stop God. Not even closed minds or closed hearts. (4/7/2002)
• Why does God allow us to open so many wrong doors? Well maybe they aren't the wrong doors. Maybe we perceive them to be wrong, because we think faith should mirror our comfort zones. (7/21/2002)
• Inquiry isn’t the enemy of faith, apathy is the enemy of faith. (11/2/2003)
• If you doubt it, live as if you don’t. Rather, live as if you trust, and through your faith you will come to understand. (2/15/2004)

Easter

• In the post-Easter stories, Jesus never showed off his wounds in a way which said . . . "See, look what I've done for you." The truth isn't in a suffering Jesus but in a love which leads to life beyond suffering. (4/13/97)
• Simply, on this week, at some point, Jesus on that donkey will pass by us. Will we see Him? Will we recognize Him for who he is? . . . Look deep into His eyes this week; find God. Find yourself. Find the blessing. (4/5/98)
• Does God reign in the midst of your suffering? Does God reign in the midst of your weakness? Strange questions in the triumphal moods of Easter Sunday, but the only questions which, when answered, open the gates for us . . . (4/15/2001)
• The world is far from innocent, but God doesn't love the world any less after Good Friday than . . . before. God doesn't love us because the world is innocent or because we are innocent, but because it is God's will to love. Easter begins with your emptiness and mine, but its true test is the empty cross. (3/31/2002)
• Easter requires our presence. Rituals aren't gestures like "the wave" at a football game. They pull us beyond ourselves. (4/20/2003)
• Easter's essence finally isn't about an empty tomb or even about an empty cross, but about a growth into fuller lives. (4/27/2003)

Education

• Why is it that we can build state of the art major sports facilities in our cities or cultivate an Avenue of the Arts or a major entertainment center waterfront to attract tourists and we can't save our kids? Some say we as a nation lack the resources. I believe we lack the moral will. What we need is to go to war against the educational disparity in this country -- not just in the cities but within the pockets of the rural poor. (9/21/97)

Emergency

• The very word "emergency" (spiritual or otherwise) is something we're meant to emerge from. (2/22/98)

Emmanuel

• Jesus and Easter isn't our bridge to get out of this world, but God's way of showing us how truly precious the world is to God . . . Jesus didn't say, "I will get a space ship and take you away from this place," but he said, "I have come in God's name so that you may know life in abundance." Remember, Emmanuel means, "God with us." (4/13/97)

Emotions

• I have a neighbor who just bought a gorgeous British racing green '74 MGB convertible . . . In our neighborhood it's like "sandbox time." We all want his toy. If you press it, though, someone would ultimately "justify" my neighbor's decision to buy a '74 MGB as . . . "a wise investment." A wise investment. Sometimes we use reason to dress up our emotions. (6/29/97)
• ...we seem drawn to those whom -- however flawed -- teach us to have a heart. But we live in a world which would have us hide our hearts and hedge our bets. Christians teach that we must be brave enough to reveal our souls. (9/14/97)
• Emptiness is meant to be a starting point, not a dwelling place. As tangible as emptiness is for Christians, it's always a staging area. (2/8/98)

Entertainment

• What's the fine line between what's entertaining and what's inspirational? Can we ever just say that Handel's Messiah is "entertainment" or Bach's St. Matthew's Passion is a "nice touch" or Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" sermon is just "history?" Truly inspirational moments are times when we feel God taking a "deep breath." We join hands with God - in a spiritual sense - and we are led on. (2/25/2001)

Epiphany

• The story says an angel told Joseph and Mary to take flight and the magi did not go back to Herod but returned to their homes another way. But while they returned, they would never be the same again. They knew that, for there to be kings there would be consequences, and they were kings. But the also knew that there was a greater King . . . (3/5/2003)

Eternal Life

• Maybe eternal life is something we don't deserve or inherit, but what we discover. Maybe we find it when we go to the guy in the ditch. (Spoken about the parable of the Good Samaritan, 7/12/98)

Evil

• ... we seldom at first glance see evil for what it really is, but we must embrace the assurance that while appearing to triumph at times, it will never prevail. (1/30/2000)

Failure

• [M]ere mortals, who at times will fly like angels, will crash to the ground, too. . . And we mere mortals can become so impatient with being human. . . To be mortal is to know the need for grace. No one is above it. (3/17/2002)

Faith

• . . . information without formation is half-baked. . . I believe we can read books to "inform" our faith, but we can't read books to "find" our faith. (4/27/97)
• . . . a faith that fails to point beyond itself is pointing in the wrong direction. (6/1/97)
• Faith isn't the benign assurance of constant safe harbors but the practiced assurance of calm in the storm. (5/24/98)
• We are not meant to fit our faith into our world view, but to take our faith into the world. (7/12/98)
• In a "user friendly" world it is challenging to proclaim and practice a faithfulness that's not always easy. (12/6/98)
• Claiming our status as "newly born" isn’t so bad. There is a openness to new birth. There is an innocence. There is a level of trust to life that soon enough is worn down. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could return to the newness of our faith in this fresh sense. Every day to see the opening world through the new eyes of faith. We don’t have to be an "expert" on life. God is the expert, and in the midst of all of it God assures with eternal certainty that there is a way. (5/2/99)
• Faith won’t always be a leap. Some times it is enough to allow God to beckon us toward that tiny first step. Imagine for a moment that place in you which is God’s garden. It is a place of beauty and nurture in spite of how you feel at times. Allow God to plant the seed there. Now, side by side, turn the soil, turn the soul. The dominion of heaven …. God wills in us that we find, those planting places, harsh sometimes, sometimes elegant and majestic, but always places through which life, our lives, are transformed. Not made over but made new! Plant the seed. (7/25/99)
• When will we learn that God wants our attention much more than our perfection? We can’t be perfect, anyway. Faith isn’t about our fixations, but about our capacity to trust. (11/7/99)
• I think faith is a matter of being "in between" certainties much of the time. It is to be uncertain. Uncertainty is a paramount reality in a life of caring. Why should it be different for matters of faith? Is "faith" only "faith" when it is not difficult and searching? (12/31/2000)
• Do we have a faith which allows us to live as if life is precious even when it isn't predictable? (3/11/2001)
• To live in faith is to discover the tools we need. (6/3/2001)
• Faith is a verb more than a noun. Faith is an action word. (7/8/2001)

Family

• I suspect that dynamic biblical models or images for mothering and family life generally are to be found as we faithfully struggle to personify love and hope. It's so hard to work our way through the distinctions between having children "fit in" and empowering them to make their mark. (5/11/97)
• Mothers, do what's in your hearts. Families, do what's in your hearts. But, remember, there has never been a moment in human history when what it means to be a mother or a family hasn't been an experiment. And I believe that where hope has been advanced the most has been through the experiment of family life. (5/14/2000)
• Being familiar with one another in the church can be taxing. After all, we use not corporate language or academic images to capture our life together, but family language. The question is, are we generous enough with one another? (8/17/2003)

Fear

• Either we can whistle in the darkness to take our minds off the source of the fear; or we can sing in the midst of it, to help us remember that fears, while real, aren't the deepest messages in life. (5/4/97)
• . . . do you tend to whistle in the dark or do you have a song to sing? The answer doesn't rest with whether or not you can carry a tune, but whether or not you have faith that there is something greater that can carry you. (5/4/97)
• The truth is, fear will never find its own healing, and fear endorsed is always bad religion; it leads to the worship of false gods. (10/12/97)
• The battle between love and hate, which is always rooted in fear, is waged every day in the human heart. (1/25/98)
• Life is fragile but we are not weak. There is simply no biblical theology in a bunker mentality. ... Certainly, we are meant to please God, but we can’t do that and hide from the very world God sent a Son to redeem.(1/9/2000)
• Why do so many give their fears so much credence? Why is it so effortless to use our imaginations to fuel our fears and so difficult to use our imaginations to fuel our hopes? (8/12/2001)
• You know, fear is the easy emotion. Anxiety is too. We daily have our skirmishes with it, but the truth of my faith declares, "Be ye not afraid." (1/12/2003)

Fellowship

• There are lots of churches which claim to be friendly churches but aren't welcoming ones. "Friendliness" is about being noticed. "Welcoming" is about making someone feel included. (6/27/99)
• Simply, our mission is more than finding a secure place for ourselves; we need to make room. (6/27/99)
• Our faith gives us license to look into the eyes of an absolute stranger and hand them a loaf of bread, and to worry less about how it appears than to feel the power in what Christ calls us to be and do. (2/27/2000)

Forgiveness

• What would happen if all of us felt that faith was a place where iniquity could be forgiven and where memory was a sacred sacrament and not a weapon in a moral arsenal? (3/9/97)
• . . . hope . . . isn't found in tomorrows but in places of sanctuary in which forgiveness happens not because it's easy but because it's willed by God -- in places of sanctuary where what is remembered is the embrace of restoration and not the pain which demanded it. (3/9/97)
• While Christianity is personal, it is never a private thing. People who tell you that their relationship with God has nothing to do with anyone else need a course in New Testament theology. In other words, we are responsible for cultivating restored relationships whether that means we are offering forgiveness or receiving it. (10/26/97)
• To say that we can't forgive, or that we stand in no need of forgiveness is to go through life bearing the weight of many crosses, but not one of them is the cross of Christ. (10/26/97)
• When I was a kid, we had a Lionel train set. Occasionally my brother and I would run it too fast so the train would inevitably jump the track. It didn't matter how much power we gave the transformer, the thing wouldn't run until we realigned the wheels. Forgiveness is like that - both asking for it and granting it. It's the only way we realign our lives, the only true way to get back on track. (7/26/98)
• Can we allow people to love us in spite of our perceived and real flaws? (2/23/2003)

Freedom

• We aren't wind up toys or cute little "beany babies" created to keep God company . . . (T)he Hebrews knew that their covenant with . . . God was framed in their freedom -- the freedom to embrace their relationship with their Creator or else to reject it. (6/29/97)

Fun

• For some in colonial Philadelphia, the preparation for Christmas was very solemn and some faith communities ignored Christmas because they thought it was pagan. In the name of God, we can take ourselves so seriously. The first thing which needs to happen if we are to be a light for others, is that we have to "lighten up." There is a place for pleasure in spiritually aware, meaning filled lives. (12/1/2002)

Future

• No farmer plows a straight furrow looking backward. The past is meant to inform the future but not to constrict it. God knows that if we wait for the perfect furrow . . . then we will never plant because our hearts will be in the past . . . The farmer knows, maybe with more clarity than the rest of us, that while his hand is on the plow, he is held by bigger hands. (6/28/98)
• We can live into any future, however unpredictable, but first of all we have to learn (and re-learn) to live within ourselves. (4/11/99)
• Sometimes we have to walk fast to catch up. Sometimes we have to walk through some seriously unpleasant stuff. But for Christians, there is simply no future in standing still. (3/19/2000)
• Just as Jesus is God's way to us, Jesus is our way to one another and to humanity. The church. We are meant to be the forward thinkers. The forward walkers. (10/1/2000)
• To have the capacity to remember wonderful things, we first have to allow for the capacity to imagine wonderful things and then . . . live into them. (4/14/2002)
• We are not victims. We decide who we are becoming. (3/30/2003)
• We aren't the kind of person we are, we grow into the kind of people we will be. And this strategic truth is dynamic. (8/31/2003)

Gardens

• A problem is that we can elevate our rather small and personal dislikes to the "weed level." . . . People who only pull weeds don't grow gardens, they just get rid of weeds. (8/19/2001)

Giving

• Simply, we can't say we love Jesus and not love giving. It just doesn't work. Jesus and generosity fit like hand in glove. (7/2/2000)

Goals

• God moves hearts to reconfigure agendas and the goal - however stubbornly we resist it - is not ours, but God's. (5/31/98)

God

• God is in your office. God is on the soccer field. God is in your head when it is 3:30 in the morning, pitch dark and there's no one else to talk to. God is on every front page and on every newscast. If we don't see it or don't get it, maybe it's not that God isn't there but that we lack the training. (10/11/98)
• Can we hear behind the artful denials the One who sees in us more than the world will ever see and more than we can ever feel within ourselves? (11/1/98)
• God’s love is deeper than the veneer of our sins and failures. We can be comfortable in that. Comfort breeds security, not complacency. (1/24/99)
• Never try to tell me you're not "good enough" to be a light. I'll believe what God has to say about you, before I'll believe what you have to say about you! (2/14/99)
• You should feel safe with God. Do you believe that Christianity is a religion of grace? If you understand that personally, then you should feel safe with God. Grace is God’s open hand. The only requirement is that we accept the partnership. (12/5/99)
• I assume that God can do anything, but to reduce the conversation to conventional dialogue is to trivialize the concept of covenant. Does God always have to talk like a highly cultured British guy before we will take notice? (3/12/2000)
• You know, a lot of people debate whether God exists. In my experience, if we take ourselves to those places of need and tackle our own fears, in the midst of all that, God will be found. (6/3/2001)
• God doesn't love to dance with you because you have mastered all the right steps but because God loves every opportunity to draw close. (7/8/2001)
• God doesn't require an appointment or even a right attitude. Sometimes God gives us a little nudge and it is so subtle that we don't recognize clearly that the nudge is God's. Sometimes you "show up" in church and, surprisingly, "church" shows up in you! (8/26/2001)

Grace

• . . . grace is not something which, by definition, is either earned or deserved, but it must be embraced. As with any "gift," the fact that it is given is only half the issue; the other half is that grace must be received and accepted. (1/4/98)
• Religious people can care so much about being right that they forget about being good -- that can be "religion" of a sort but it's not spirituality. (1/4/98)
• . . . if "grace" is a letter sent from God - and we can think about it that way – then if we return the letter unopened, we can’t fault God or anyone else for not trying. (3/7/99)
• Champions lose games. We mortals can become so impatient with being human. But we are meant to soar sometimes, and will. And those who will truly minister to us will not keep score. What they will do for us, is help us remember that "grace" is for us too. Not just for the weak and the very flawed. To be "mortal" is to know the need for grace. No one is above it. (3/21/99)
• God wrestles with us not to take our lives but to give our lives back! . . . There is no cheap easy grace. There is only the amazing grace of having wrestled with God. (8/1/99)
• Grace isn’t about getting away with stuff. Rather, it’s about being freed up to be the people God yearns for us to be! (12/5/99)
• Fortunate churches are those powered by amazing grace. (12/9/2001)

Greatness

• greatness always allows . . . the will and courage to move our hearts one step beyond despair . . . . not because it's easy but because it draws us closer to God. (12/21/97)

Grief

• I’ve known people during my ministry who have suddenly lost loved ones, and, as a result, never returned to church. Death has made them bitter and diminished. What a sad legacy for those who loved them. (10/26/2003)

Happiness

• Is happiness tied to our capacity to get what we think we should have . . .? But when will we have enough . . .? (6/17/2001)
• Happiness can be a sign of an external stability, but joy is the signal of the secure soul. (7/1/2001)

Healing

• God is not always pleased with us, but my theology informs me that we are no less loved because we are known. God knows us. We can prayerfully learn to know ourselves. Prayerful self awareness is a healing place in anyone's life. (2/20/2000)
• What, ultimately, does it mean to be well? It is to consciously choose to see life not as an irritant but as a blessing. (1/27/2002)
• Chances are, we will not take away another person's sin. Only God can do that. Our choice is whether we will add to the world's healing or to its brokenness. (7/6/2003)

History

• "Give me that old time religion; if it's good enough for Jesus then it's good enough for me." The problem is, the "old time religion" WASN'T good enough for Jesus. (5/19/2002)

Hope

• Hope stirs at Christmas, just as it does at Easter; and whenever hope stirs, we are meant to stir as well. (11/30/97)
• Christians can be as apt to put their coats on as if the "party is over" as anyone else. But do we want that to be our legacy, or do we want people to marvel at how often -- in the face of adversity and challenge and injustice, we've refused to settle on the obvious? Jesus says there's plenty of God's grace to go around. I believe him. (1/18/98)
• Church is where we go to feel the hope, not to feel like failures. In one way or another, every preacher's message should say "Don't expect a miracle, BE ONE!" Optimism is what we feel; hope is what we give birth. (7/5/98)
• Hope is always somewhere outside the predictable box. We need to be willing to act in faith on that. It may not always be practical, but it’s biblical. (5/30/99)
• For Christians, brokenness is never the final commentary, but a place where God is to be revealed. . . Your life must be a witness to the hope here. Hope can never be obtained, however, without the willingness to feel. (4/16/2000)
• We worship a God whose very strength is found in what God does with weakness -- with forsakenness. (4/20/2000)
• Hope isn't about being blind to the present, but allowing for the possibility of a world as God might see it. After all, it is God's world. (12/2/2001)
• Are you a disciple? 'I will not leave you orphaned,' Jesus declares. (5/5/2002)
• It is not up to us to measure the amount of hope, but to live as if hope is abundant. (2/2/2003)
• God doesn’t protect us so much as equip us. (9/14/2003)

Humility

• Humility is consolation that the Spirit intercedes for you . . . that you don't have to do it all . . . and most importantly that you recognize that the position of "God" is already filled. (3/18/97)
• Humility is . . . a platform for generosity. The words humility and humane have the same root. Both are from the Latin word "humus" which means "of the earth." We are all brothers and sisters of the same yearning. (8/30/98)
• Are we humble enough and thankful enough to love? It is not a question for softies but only for the very brave because the world provides every excuse we need to avoid doing it. There is a story about a minister who had just finished a Sunday on which he had preached a sermon engendering ecstatic praise. And it was short! After worship he asks a deacon, "How many great preachers do you think there are in America these days?" The deacon responds, "One less than you think, Reverend." Life keeps us humble. (9/26/99)
• Benjamin Franklin said, "After crosses and losses, we grow humbler and, in turn, wiser." . . . Can it be that our humility will ultimately be our greatest strength and most perceptive teacher? (6/10/2001)
• We can be very successful and humble. Being humble isn't about self-deprecation but about a generosity of self driven by our gratitude. (8/26/2001)

Image of God

• I'd like to believe that because we all walk around in the image of God, we all have a spark of the Creator's genius too. (1/18/98)

Injustice

• Christians aren't soft on injustice. We name it. We must be strident in the face of it. But we aren't, or shouldn't be, casual about the virtue of charity as an important civil lubricant. (9/3/2000)

Inspiration

• Music is a series of dots and shapes on paper -- pretty linear. It's only when we bring the expanse of the human heart to it that it becomes music. Never be such a realist that you lose the yearning to be inspired. Perception isn't about what's "there" but about how we choose to see! (2/9/97) (Also see vision.)
• Are you open to the reality that God can move you to great things? Maybe the "great thing" is teaching an eight year old to fly cast. Maybe it's to lead South Africa away from the grips of apartheid like Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandella. Maybe it's to play a moving piano prelude . . . I think it's always to take a chance for the right reasons, knowing that however it goes, God smiles on the righteous. (5/25/97)

Jesus

• Who needs to be fed? Who needs to be made whole? Find Jesus there! (6/1/97)
• Essentially, a loyal follower of Jesus is really a leader. We don't have to be pre-occupied with protecting Jesus. Loyalty [among the disciples] wasn't about building a circle of protection around Jesus or his message, but going out and ministering in his name. (9/28/97)
• Jesus didn't die for me, so that I could get spiritually "one up" on you! (2/27/2000)
• We are reminded that Jesus will not remain in innocent infancy, nor can our faith. (12/31/2000)

Joy

• The test of faith that I find most authentic isn't the presence of a tight lipped piety, but the expansive presence of joy.! Laughter, as with tears, is an expression of spontaneous prayer. (11/11/2001)
• You know and I know that pretty much we live in a "what's-in-it-for-me?" world.
  The joy has to come from the inside out and that takes practice. (10/27/2002)

Judgment

• Perhaps, in theological terms, judgment is the pain we know we need to move through in order to be restored - and the knowledge of the pain we have caused others. . . that others must move through because of our failure. Judgment is not about retribution but about the work of restitution. (9/27/98) (Also see forgiveness and redemption.)

Justice

• For justice to operate there needs to be a belief in a higher goal than vengeance. (5/24/98)
• We can’t be biblical and not believe that while evil may appear to triumph it never conquers. Furthermore it will not prosper for long. . . . Evil must be named for what it is and pursued for what it does. The pursuit of peace is synonymous with the pursuit of what is just. (9/16/2001)

K

Kindness

• Nice people don’t finish last. Over Christmas, I was thinking about all the people in my life who would be viewed on any scale as successful, and they are all nice people. When I’m in their presence, I feel empowered … I feel good about myself and I want to pass some "goodness" on. (1/9/2000)

Labels

• . . . words like "conservative" and "liberal" can reduce ideas to diatribes . . . (9/28/97)

Laughter

• No one gets through life without burning the chicken. It is seldom a flawed menu which destroys a good party; usually it's the inability of someone to laugh at themselves. (8/30/98)
• One of the nice aspects about having the Cabrini Preschool around our church is that each day is "filled with kids." I can come in some mornings a little bummed out and some kid will run up to me and say, "Hi, Frank ... what are ya doin!! What's in your office? What's THIS? What do you do all day! This past Friday was PAJAMA DAY. Frank, will you wear your pajamas?" Whose pajamas would I wear? How can you be a little bummed out when you've got some kid pumping you with questions for important answers?? I mean this is IMPORTANT STUFF! What do I do all day? Little kids are still young enough so that they can get away with not being too serious or political. Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said ... "Unless we become as children ..." Maybe we let our light shine best when we "lighten up" a bit. Kids aren’t solemn, they are not too uptight to wear pajamas to school. Who gets hurt if everyone is a little silly? Sometimes Jesus means for our light to be light! (2/7/99)
• We're not so frightened for the future that we're afraid to laugh. (12/9/2001)
• Maybe the capacity for healthy laughter is as much a measure of our spiritual health as our capacity for eloquent prayers – maybe more . . . (1/4/2004)

Leadership

• Jesus didn't say, "Rank your priorities." He said, "Follow me." Is it foolish to follow, or foolish to believe we need never be led? (1/20/2002)

Lent

• May this Season of Lent, which began . . . Ash Wednesday. . . be a time when we seek after the certain knowledge and awareness of what God provides, for those who trust, in those places we would rather not go and in those times when we must make ourselves do what we would rather not do. Be assured that we not only don't go there alone, but that God walked there first. (3/4/2001)

Life

• Life is not meant by our Creator to be something we either "get over" or "get through," but to be an experience which is enjoyable and engaging. (7/8/2001)
• Life is good - not because it is devoid of harsh challenges but because it is infused with meaning . . . What ultimately inspires us must first challenge us. (5/26/2002)
• Work at being attentive this week. Live as if God is bigger than the moment. Experience prayer, at least in part, as God's "what now?" (8/24/2003)

Love

• Do you really think there is an issue more profound and resilient than God's love? (7/23/2000)
• I suspect we can earn another's respect. We may even be capable of earning affection. But love is a gift. (10/15/2000)
• Do we live as if we have value because we're loved? That's what our baptism says. (10/22/2000)
• We aren't meant simply to know ourselves, but to know, and to feel, that we are loved. That's hard for some of us. We are taught by our culture that love is a reward, while Christianity proclaims that love is a gift! (1/27/2002)
• . . .I'm convinced that when we try to love, then we learn how to love. (6/30/2002)
• We are loved out of a bottomless well of grace, not out of a conditional love. . . (1/12/2003)
• Love isn't just a rational emotion; it's a commandment, and at the top of the list. (1/26/2003)
• The energy of love prevails. Not the kind you find in “Sex in the City” but the kind we find in servanthood. (2/1/2004)

Magic

• The difference between magic and faith is that magic tries to manipulate God or the heavens. Faith is the trust that every life encounter is, in one way or another, and encounter with God. (6/3/2001)

Messengers

• I like the concept of God "using us as messengers." To be used by God doesn't mean becoming a drone for God to speak amidst the clamor. The reality is, we come equipped. We don't need someone else's armor. (6/29/97)

Ministry

• Ministry is always about allowing ourselves to move beyond our ambivalence toward engagement. Sometimes it is as basic or as simple as reaching into your wallet. Sometimes it’s forcing yourself to see the image of God in someone you can’t force yourself to like. Sometimes it is looking around for what can bring about a healing change, cupping it in your hands and making a personal difference. (3/14/99)
• God needs from you the same response as God received from Isaiah, “Here I am, send me.” Go into this world to give and to receive in gladness. (2/8/2004)

Miracles

• Sometimes a miracle doesn't come prepackaged. Can it be that sometimes we simply get the parts? There seems to be those times when God provides the components and expects us to be the creative ones. (7/30/2000)

Mission

• If the church isn't the advocate for world's vulnerable and marginalized, then who is? That's Jesus' message. Anyone can be attracted to the beautiful and charming. (9/21/97)
• Christians need the disciplines of community and mission; we need the challenge of a contemporary faith and not just "words" which tell us old news. We need fellowship and companions in our struggles, elements as necessary as oxygen to fire. And we need to find out about the hungry by feeding them even when (or especially when) we don't feel like it. We have to build beside the poor and remember that the swing of a hammer knows nothing about color or status -- only about hope and resolve. (2/7/99) (Also see Communion and Vocation.)
• We have inherited a story which can't be told. Our story has to be lived. (2/27/2000)
• "Here. . .am I." When in the silence of a moment will it be your time? When and where will the time be which calls forth convictions rather than opinions? (6/15/2003)

Mistakes

• Sure, our shortcomings are real and severe. We are not meant to endorse them as a noble standard. But let me ask you this, does God ever tire of beckoning us to new life? (10/8/2000) (Also see Forgiveness and Healing.)

Money

• It's ironic that "In God We Trust" is on our currency. Some of us are familiar with the old hymn "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine!" The irony is that for many of us our brokers have become our priests. (11/9/97)
• Let's not be so cynical and assume that money is the root of all evil. It's not. Let's not be naive, either, and endorse that Christians can view wealth just like everyone else. (5/28/2001)

Mystery

• What we don't understand, we sort of dismiss as being a "mystery." The word "mystery," however, (mysterion) means "a truth too profound to be fully fathomed or grasped." Mystery isn't meant to bring closure to what we can't understand but to be living vessel for a deep truth about life and us and our relationship with our Creator. (6/29/97)

Nation

• Lives and the nation need to be restored. . . Before we move on as a nation we need to look deep. We need to ask what we have allowed to replace our nation's soul. (9/27/98)
• As nations, we can go about the business of what can amount to global "shell games." And we in the pews can throw up our hands in amazement because it is all so complex and, after all, we have leaders for that and we are not in the trenches. But we ARE in the trenches. And if the pews on which we sit are too comfortable then this is not the church of Jesus Christ. (9/23/2001)

Neighbors

• Your neighbor isn't just the person living next door, but the guy at 10th and Diamond in the City of Brotherly Love. Do you think of him or her as your neighbor? God's neighborliness needs to be that expansive and embracing. (11/5/2000)

Optimism

• I think optimism is "junk food," okay, but you can’t survive on it. Faith-rooted hope, however, is bread for any journey! (5/30/99)
• Where will you allow your holy inheritance to take you that places you on some new pathway? (7/13/2003)

Pain

• Where is the pain in you right now? Do you have faith that God is teaching there? (11/16/2003)

Palm Sunday

• I believe that on some corner, in some context, you will see Christ passing by. It will not be the beast of burden he will be riding which will reveal it, but his soulful studied glance your way. He's not sad, just yearning, but he knows you. Look deep into his eyes this week; find God. Find yourself. Find the blessing. . . Because of Jesus' burden during Holy Week and what it points to, it is now your mission to carry the burden of a peace the world will never fully fathom or understand. (4/8/2001)

Parables

• For example, babies don't make us smile, faces do. Talking heads don't make us cry, personal human experiences do. "Duty" doesn't inspire us to sacrifice but just give us the right cause and we'll die for it. Jesus told parables. Stories. A parable is an image around which you wrap a personal experience. (4/18/99)

Parents

• To see the goodness in ourselves, someone must do more than wipe away the tears. Someone must see the goodness in us first. Someone must mentor what ultimately we have to assume responsibility for; specifically our own futures. The best of parenting shows the way. (5/13/2001)
• No trendy or sanctimonious "expert" on parenting is going to fully grasp the beauty and wonder of the first homemade Mother's Day card or the pride in a simple job, done well. (5/11/2003)

Patience

• There is a saying that patience is a quality you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead of you. (2/27/2002)
• We want learning to be easy. We want, or even expect, the sunny daylight. We can yearn for a “Cliff Notes Jesus.”  But patience is a virtue. (11/16/2003)

Peace

• Peace on earth? Anticipate peace in your hearts. (12/24/97)

Pentecost

• Have you ever had your fear just swept away? Have you ever just fought your way through anxiety to courage and wept at the breakthrough? All of this is what Pentecost was all about. (5/31/98)

Peter

• We want the true believers, but we get Peter. I guess it shows what God can do, even with us! Jesus called Peter "the rock" - not because he was so steady, but because he was "the rock" who refused to sink. The miracle isn't Peter's perfection, but his tenacity. (9/17/2000)

Pilgrims

• For the prodigals of Plymouth, "home" wasn't a big move in the neighborhood but a shift in consciousness; it was to risk everything for what amounted to a spiritual investment . . . Thanksgiving isn't about the blessings of comfort, but about the courage, resolve, and resiliency, to sail. (11/23/97)
• To be a pilgrim is to be patient with doubt in a world in which patience is perceived as inefficient. To be a pilgrim is to experience not having all the answers, as a pathway to truth rather than as a sign of weakness. (3/9/2003)

Poverty

• No one who prays is poor. Do you accept God’s abundance in your life as a gift or do you fret about who has more? Do you buy into the religion of scarcity that our society markets so well? Do you live out of your abundance because your faith translates into trust? (10/31/99)

Power

• Power ultimately isn't about security and privilege at all, but about the presence of mind which is rooted in our understanding about the nature of God and the message of Christ. (10/19/97)
• If we have lost touch with the sense of the awesomeness of God, we have lost touch as well with what is sacred. . . The use of power is a sacred stewardship. . . Power isn't sacred, but what is truly sacred empowers. (9/27/98)
• We hear a lot about turning the other cheek.  We think faithful people are meant to be self-effacing. Piety and power seem to be contradictory ideas.   Jesus, on the other hand, was a powerful figure.  He overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple. Jesus stood up to the leadership of his time in forceful ways.  Power is the capacity to create change and Jesus used it. (10/19/2003)

Praise

• Anxious and fearful hearts are a dime a dozen. Could it be that we are created for the willful and humble practice of praise? (5/28/2000)

Prayer

• Maybe the issue for contemporary Christians isn't so much who we need to pray for as it is who we need to pray with. (1/25/98)
• Luke records Jesus as saying, "Ask and it will be given you, search and you will find, knock and the door will open." Prayer doesn't assure us easy answers, but it sets the stage. It acknowledges that our Creator has a deeper interest in us than we ourselves . . . we are God's children. Jesus is our brother. (7/26/98)
• God isn't in a place called 'heaven' but on watch at the highest and most intimate points of your life. God knows what Jesus felt like when the disciples fell asleep, so God stays awake, but we have to offer a receptive mind and heart. Prayer is how we set the stage for the great drama of God. (7/29/2001)
• We are meant to pray when everything around us tells us that the skies are empty. We are meant to love when everything within us gives us reasons to hate. (10/28/2001)
• Note that Jesus doesn’t pray to get out of a jam, or to get another chance, or to be let off of the hook. Rather, Jesus prays for the well-being of his friends. (6/1/2003)

Preaching

• The problem I have with some preaching is that it's big on indictments but short on answers. The evidentiary proof of a good sermon is not whether we leave church happy or sad but whether we leave empowered. We have no right to think we should agree with every sermon but we do have the right not to leave empty. Worship isn't meant to be entertaining but it should always be uplifting. (7/5/98)

Promise

• To have a glad heart doesn't mean you always have to settle for "happy talk." Jesus doesn't promise an easy road but a meaningful one. He doesn't even promise us safe lives, just full ones. (6/28/98)

Pride

• Just set aside the idea that we make the world go round. We don't. We just help others see, in wonder, what there is to truly see. (5/12/002)
• Can we yearn to hear God as deeply as we yearn to be heard ourselves? (1/19/2003)

Prophet

• The prophet's vocation is to search out and improve, not attack and destroy. Therefore we need to welcome prophets. They may not make us comfortable but they just may lead us to a deeper understanding and expression of faith. (10/12/97)

Redemption

• Don't we all in some sense yearn for this second chance? Faith is about a second breath, a birth of energy out of nowhere when there are spiritual "trees" to climb. (11/4/2001)
• Redemption is work because we have to actively seek, to restore something. We all know those are the most difficult phone calls to make, the hardest letters to write, the most wrenching of all encounters. We have to pick up the pieces and attempt to put things right. (8/4/2002)

Repentance

• I don't think repentance is about a harsh judgmentalism, but about soul-freeing liberation. (12/9/2001)

Respect

• Of course, respect for others is hard if you don't have it for yourself. And we have self respect because we believe God respects us first. But we have to practice. We get good at what we keep doing. Except golf. (9/3/2000)

Reverence

• It has been my conviction that we live in a world in which mastery has taken the place of reverence, in which sophistication has replaced awe. Reverence is about trusting God in the face of every Good Friday. You bear crosses, too. Good Friday is God's way to us. Awe is about cultivating a creative innocence in the face of mystery. But most of us won't find it in our day planners. Innocence is found in places of reverence and awe. (4/4/99)

Reward

• I suspect we benefit from knowing a Jesus who doesn't always look like a winner. Can we embrace the reality that Jesus most likely didn't want to go to Jerusalem under these emotionally hard circumstances, but went there anyway? Where do you need to go where you will find no immediate reward in going? (3/11/2001)
• Do you have a theology for the times when you need "a way" when all around you withholds the reward? (3/11/2001)

Risk

• The measure isn't whether everyone is comfortable, because we won't all share the same thresholds for risk. The measure is simply whether we have the courage of our convictions . . . (10/25/98)

Science

• We want science to provide the twin comforts of control and predictability, but science alone can't package meaning for us, or joy, or graciousness or the reason to climb and prevail. These will, forever remain matters of the heart and for the soul. Science is not the enemy of spirit but it will never replace it. (8/18/2002)
• Scientists tell us that we are made up of the same atoms and molecules created through the birth of the universe. What this tells me is that the light generated on Mt. Hermon vibrates into eternity. It’s fantastic to believe, I know, but that light shines on in you. (2/22/2004)

Security

• Biblical security is internal; it's not a we/they thing. People in the U.S. spend more money on personal security systems than ever before. Anxiety drives the marketing of consumer goods from cell phones to cars. . . But God is . . . a powerful counter-voice to the siren calls of our fears. (10/12/97)
• . . . security [is not] that we can broker or acquire whatever we want, but security is about the true inventory of what we really need. (11/9/97)

Sin

• I don't know what is worse for churches: people who are chronic unrepentant sinners or people who believe they never sin. (12/9/2001) (Also see forgiveness.)
• “Sin” is any behavior which dehumanizes us. And sometimes sin is arrogance wrapped in the robes of religion. (2/29/2004)

Skepticism

• . . . when skepticism is where the process stops rather than serving as a beginning point for new awareness and insight, then we miss a lot. How do you know you don't like asparagus? "I just know." Have you ever tried one? "No!" How do you know then? "Well, I don't like how they look so I just think I don't like asparagus." Maybe he's right. But then again . . . Thomas just had to try the new Jesus. And, as with Thomas, may the real wounds of all our Good Fridays reveal the promise of a healing transformation. (4/6/97, reflecting on Acts 4:32)

Sophistication

• If we conclude that we have become so intellectual that our sophistication can replace a sense of awe, then we're not very smart. (6/7/98)

Spirit

• Spiritual poverty is about an inability to see the world's realities because we are blinded by our own expectations. (2/15/98)
• A healthy, hearty soul knows the ache of growing. (10/3/99)
• What makes you leap? What about worship or your life in faith gives wings to your soul? (7/16/2000)
• Four signs of a “spirit filled” church as I see it – energy, joy, witness, humility. (6/08/2003)

Strength

• We are so conditioned to think of "strength" as the capacity to "go it alone" rather than to think of strength as the meaningful capacity to share our lives. (4/27/97)
• There is spiritual strength stronger than physical force. (5/28/2001)
• Joy is finding out that when life doesn't give us what we want, God gives us what we need. God enables us to find our best. (2/16/2003)

Tears

• God has been wiping away tears from the beginning and will wipe away tears . . . until the end of time. (5/13/2001)

Terror, Terrorism

• Would Jesus terrorize the innocent in the name of the Father? With moral anger, there is a place for turbulence but not violence. (3/2/97)
• We have faith in the value and meaning of life, not just its expedience and terror. (9/14/97)
• Those of us who gather in safety this evening need to own the abuse of religion as a personal concern. Religion is a powerful force for the enhancement of human dignity and the common good. We cannot claim silence as an appropriate answer to terroristic religion, either from the radical right or the radical left. Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we can justify the creation of more victims. (9/12/2001)
• I watched clips of those massive towers collapsing - symbolic monuments of American vitality and stability - but while we are traumatized, rightly, by yesterday's events in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, we are no less strong as a people today. Our strength doesn't come from bricks and mortar but from our character and our will. (9/12/2001)
• The world's problem isn't Islam, but "true believers" of every stripe who proof - text hatred and violence with isolated passages from their scriptures. (10/28/2001)

Thanksgiving

• For Christians being thankful isn't about what we have but about the fact that we are loved into eternity. (11/22/98)
• We give thanks, not for what we have or have avoided in life, but for our capacity to share in something so precious as life itself. (9/29/2002)

Time

• We can't be involved with the pilgrimage and be always looking at our clocks. What matters in life is never about just putting in the time. God doesn't understand billable hours. Sometimes it seems as if God takes forever, doesn't it? (3/12/2000)
• I think the image of God creating six days, and then taking the seventh off, is telling. The very best runners don't run every day. (7/9/2000)
• Is God any less a companion for us than for Peter, James and John? Are we any less on sacred ground and in a Holy time? What does our faith challenge us to take to the flatlands and into the valleys when we climb back into 'real life'? And what is 'real life,' anyway? (2/25/2001)
• We like to conclude that if we were closer to Jesus in time and space we would see things more clearly, but the evidence suggests the early church needed the same reminders we need. (7/1/2001)

Tradition

• Tradition isn't something from which to escape, but rather a platform upon which to build into the future. (1/13/2002)

Trinity

• God in three persons . . . Perhaps three manifestations of God is a better way to say it. (5/26/2002)

Trust

• Trust is about where we invest our faith. A child is willing to climb on a two-wheeler and aim that bike down a tree-lined street not because he thinks he can ride on a two-wheeler but because mom or dad or both are standing there declaring, "Yes you can!" I don't think we ever move very far in life from the two-wheeler stage. (11/9/97)
• If you entrust yourself to God's abundance, the failings of those around you and your own failings are experienced in a new light. Disturbing, and rightly, but not devastating. (7/14/2002)
• Of course, it is easier not to trust. But when we lack it, we also tend to look at things differently. We tend to look at things in terms of scarcity rather than in terms of abundance. Our lives and the lives of those around us become problems to be solved rather than something promising. We become very protective. Fearful, really. Resentful. When we never trust, we never have to commit. (11/9/2003)

United Church of Christ

• The United Church of Christ, is a heady, exhilarating, adventuresome expression of the body of Christ; a church for a time such as this. Is it a perfect church? Well let me ask you this. Are your kids? Is your family? Is your best friend perfect? Sure our church has flaws, but I believe it is seeking a faithful witness. Our church is an affectionate church. Our church is a welcoming church. Our church is an inclusive church in a time of damaging single-issue groups and movements. Our church is a church which doesn’t point the finger, but rather joins hands in praise. Our church is a church which is not afraid to be wrong in the pursuit of what is right. Our church is a church which doesn’t believe that "sin" is the final word. Our church is a church that believes that we are all broken, at least a little bit and that our work is not just to bind up the wounds of others, but to confess to our own personal woundedness and our tendencies to wound. Our church is a church which still sees the message of Jesus Christ as Good News and the empty cross as a symbol that we are meant to find God in our world. (7/11/99)

Values

• . . . what we value isn't ours to keep but ours only to advance. (2/2/97)
• . . . how can we experience a God who is intimate and personal if we shy away from deeper values in our day to day life together as Christians? (4/27/97)
• I believe Christianity is less about "the rules" and more about standards. Sometimes it is far easier to keep the rules than it is to live up to standards. (9/2/2001)

Vision

• How many good and worthy visions are aborted not because the road to their realization is impossible but because the road is too scary? (11/16/97)
• Don't get stuck in the content of the moment. Feel it, but don't reduce your life to it. This moment, simply, is not where the truth of you resides. (3/19/2000)
• Imagine for a moment that place in you which is God's garden. It is a place of beauty and nurture in spite of how you feel at times - in spite of the weeds. Allow God to plant the seed there. (7/21/2002)

Vocation

• . . . while the world is about happiness, vocation is about joy. There's something blessed in opening each day with a prayerful request: "Here I am. Send me." (5/25/97)
• May we understand that the real measure of God’s movement in life isn’t how protected we are - how safe - but how effective we are. May this be a time when the Word of God – rather than rarely perceived – is acknowledged in our midst. Vocation, literally means listening to where God is calling you! (1/16/2000)

Wilderness

• . . . we sometimes need the experience of wilderness places before we can truly know what centers us . . . maybe what we refuse to allow to destroy us makes us strong and wiser; but we can't know that by standing still. (11/23/97)

• Are you a wanderer or are you on a pilgrimage? The Exodus story . . . isn't just about Hebrews, it's also about us. It is about what is natural. . . . It is not that scatteredness or the skirmishes which defines us but that God constantly seeks us. (9/19/99)

Winning

• How many causes are "lost" not because they inherently are but because that's the conclusion we bring to it? (3/30/97)
• It's no crime to like to win, but how we do it has theological implications. (10/19/97)

Wisdom

• I need to know how much air pressure my bike tires will handle. It's that basic. But wisdom is to sense when and where I need to ride. Facts are only a prelude. (6/10/2001)

Witness

• I suspect the most authentic "witness" is when people take hard, difficult moments which could break either way, and make them better. (12/21/97)
• What will your face light up -- how will your words and expression be a soul's window? (12/24/97)
• The consequence of being born is that you will be a witness to SOMETHING, even if it is only indifference. (5/4/2003)
• Pretend it's not Jesus you're excited about, but The Flyers, or Mel Gibson. And if you are quite comfortable with witnessing, don't narrow the definition. (5/4/2003)

Work

• We are so conditioned to believe that there is a direct correlation between effort and efficiency; success boils down to "trying hard enough." But it's not always that neat. Resiliency is about a deeper sense of spirit because we can invite it in when we've been drained of enthusiasm. (2/8/98)
• We need to hold ourselves, and hold one another, accountable. We have higher standards, not in an elitist sense, but in the sense of a disciplined servanthood. (8/3/2003)

Worship

• It's interesting that some people refer to what happens here as "The Service." Sadly, for some people, it's where the "service" stops. Actually, for . . . Christians, the Benediction is meant to be just the beginning of things. (6/1/97)
• Worship is . . . where the spirit of the moment is born through each of us and where we get a chance to prepare to once again take on the world's many exiles and idols. (6/1/97)
• . . . worship isn't a performance but a training ground. (11/16/97)
• Church isn't that place where we go to set the world aside, but to re-equip ourselves to address what we know the world needs. Devotion is never about the proper forms because the forms and their language change over time and from culture to culture. The measure is always whether our attentiveness allows us to recognize the Lord. (3/29/98)
• We make a mistake if we reduce worship to what we like or don’t like. Worship is too critical to be reduced to the consumer drives which operate effectively everywhere else. In worship we are not consumers but co-workers. (9/12/99)God enlists us as agents of transformation. Worship is the response to God’s wonderful demand. (1/25/2004)