Rev. Dr. Carter Lester

Two weeks ago, I spent a week of study leave at the Chautauqua Institute, an amazing summer vacation learning community that was started 150 years ago by a Methodist minister and a businessman to provide training for Sunday School teachers and other lay leaders.  Still going strong, the community includes denominational houses like the Presbyterian […]

When you step back and think about it, can you believe what we have just done?  We have jut read words written probably about 2500 years go about a people who were traveling through the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula over 3000 years ago.  And now, we are going to say how what happened to […]

Do you remember what it was like when you, or someone close to you, brought your new-born on or daughter home from the hospital?  How many pictures or videos you took?  How little they did – but how long you could just gaze on them, your heart bursting with love?  I remember one of the […]

You have to feel for Paul in this section of Second Corinthians. More than in any other city, Paul’s ministry has come under attack in Corinth. And he is not there to defend himself. His attackers are rival apostles who want to supplant Paul.  Their tactics are something any modern-day political advisor might agree with.  […]

When it comes to this account of Jesus and his disciples in a boat in a storm, our attention is usually drawn to the almost comic image of Jesus asleep in the boat in the midst of the storm – and then his power to still that great storm.  While we don’t want to skip […]

It has been said that you can divide people into two groups: those who watch a movie without talking or texting and those who like to think everyone else will want to comment or text while the movie going.  I am proud to say that I am in that first group, the right group, but […]