On September 11, 2001; thirty-eight airplanes landed in Gander, Newfoundland, a Canadian town of about ten thousand people. This is because U.S. airspace had closed because of the terrorist attacks that happened that day. Nearly seven thousand travelers ended up stranded in Gander, almost doubling the size of their town. Immediately a local television ad […]
Churches spend a great deal of time asking how they will raise faithful children. Ours too. We ask what they need to learn, which stories they need to know, and what will help them carry faith into the rest of their lives. These are important questions. But in today’s passage, Jesus turns the idea of […]
Throughout our summer series, we have exploring passages of disputing with God found in the Older Testament. Today we move into the Newer Testament, and well, the disputing continues. And this time it’s between a woman and Jesus. A Canaanite woman – a mother – disputes with Christ because she believes his mercy is also […]
Each day at Vacation Bible School, our children explored a different part of God’s Word and the good news given to them. Today we going to hear the same message at this past week’s VBS through five Scripture readings and five short reflections. Our theme this year was “Blastoff! God’s Big Universe.” All week long, […]
There’s this scene in Glee that instantly came to mind when I read the Gospel of John passage. For those who never watched it, Glee was a show about a high school show choir. It was loud and dramatic and often ridiculous, but underneath all the singing and chaos, it was about a bunch of teenagers trying to figure […]
I was on the phone with one of my grandmas the other day, and throughout the whole conversation, my grandma would return to a phrase as if it was her mantra. She would start talking about something happening in her town, or something happening across the country, and then she would stop herself and say, […]