It seemed to me that this day would be a great day to talk about faith. Here we are at our annual “in-gathering” – at the time of year when we are all invited to make a decision regarding our financial commitment to St. Paul’s. Throughout the year, all of us are given countless opportunities to participate with our time and with our talents in various efforts here at St. Paul’s. But today’s invitation is a pledge of monies…
Good Morning. I’m a little bit wired since I’ve been up since 6:15 this morning. This is the second service I’ve come to, and a lot of you have probably seen something in the bulletin about a 7:30 service. Believe me, I didn’t believe it until I was there this morning, but trust me, there really is a 7:30 service…
“Get in the dumpster, Ricky!” Dad motioned for me to rise from my slumped position in the front seat of our car and join him. I weighed my options, and chose the one that satisfied him, for I felt that I owed him for adopting me, and I still hungered for his affection. I exited the car and Dad lifted me into the grocery store’s dumpster. Dumpster diving was nothing new for him. Dad often stopped at dumpsters to sniff out a good deal…
Let us pray. Open our eyes, O Lord, to see Your presence in one another. And in the world in people about us. Open our hearts to Your grace, to Your truth, to Your kingdom as we make our journey through Lent, through Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. And empower us by Your Holy Spirit to be Your faithful servants, Your faithful presence and witness in the world, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen…
We’re celebrating baptism today, but we’re also putting the focus on the youth of our parish. Today is Youth Sunday. The youth are so much a part of St. Paul’s: their gifts, their talents, their very presence is a gift to us. So the youth today are taking part in the liturgical ministry, the things we do here on Sunday, including preaching…
I would like to begin by sharing just a brief thought about my experience of being a witness, as we have all been witnesses, to what has been happening to our brothers and sisters in Haiti. My wife and I were particularly struck by the stories we heard on the news. This was two days and three days respectively after the earthquake had hit. And the story we kept hearing and the frustration we kept hearing was about was this sense of mounting outreach that was growing but simply couldn’t hit it’s target. Planes were in the air but there was nowhere for them to land…
We find ourselves in the season referred to as Epiphany, that season where God’s presence is shown forth to the world. Today’s readings are about the baptism of Jesus, one of those first moments in the Gospels where Jesus’ life is beginning to expand and reach beyond just his intimate family, but into the world. And so we gather on this Feast of the Ephiphany for our annual meeting…
In this week of recalling events from the past year and the past decade I remembered a story from about two years ago. It was something that involved all of us who live in this area of the country. I was thinking about the drought of 2007, the worst drought in over a hundred years…
This past July, I had an experience I will never forget. My daughter Rebecca and I had a chance to go, just the two of us, to the Kennedy Space center in Florida. We went there for about four full days. We saw everything you could possibly see at the Kennedy Space Center; we went on every tour you could go on. There are a couple of experiences from that trip I would like to share with you tonight…
According to the parish website, our liturgy this morning is a contemplative celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Now in my experience and perhaps some of yours, a contemplative eucharist can mean several things. It can mean perhaps candles and incense; it can mean Celtic music, or music from, say, the Taize community in France, or it can mean no music at all…