Pastors' Blog
I'm wrestling about what to say on Sunday.
This autumn, we have been preaching from the standard lectionary, that three-year cycle of scripture readings that Christian churches have used in some form since the fifth century. It forces a sort of discipline on us as preachers and worship leaders. Rather than choosing texts to fit our topics, we figure out how to make sense of the texts assigned and as...
As an interdenominational church, we like to welcome the local reps from our three denominations, to keep active ties with our national religious movements and legacies. Last Spring, you will recall that Mary Day Miller, Executive Minister of The American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts, preached about John Leland and the legacy of religious freedom. Sometime this...
Greetings to you and peace, from the one who is and was and is to come! In addition to being a lover of contact sports, I'm also a huge country music fan. I used to be one of those people who said "I like all genres except country and metal," and then somewhere in the summer of 2015 I was bitten by the country bug and haven't looked back. I often get some fun little nuggets out of country songs, such as,
Good morning on this balmy October day!
This weekend, our Fall Fellowship Retreat will be held up at Oceanwood, where I'll be joining you on Saturday, and Kent will be joining on Sunday morning. For those of you staying through Sunday, there will be a member-led worship service that is sure to inspire and rejuvenate! I'll be holding down the fort in Brookline and leading worship at United Parish in the Chapel, where we'll sing, pray...
I love the stories from the first five books of the Bible. The characters are so rich, so human, so flawed, so amazing, so interesting, so crafty. The collection of writers (traditionally attributed to Moses) who put it all down knew how to paint a picture of real human beings.
On Sunday, we are going to dip into the Book of Numbers (chapter 11, verses 4-29), a part of the Bible we often don't hear from,...
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus learns that his disciples were arguing about who was going to be greatest. He tells them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” and then, taking a child in his arms, he says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:36-37)
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Greetings, Beloved Children of God!
To hear a recording of Kent's sermon last Sunday, click here!
As many of you are already aware, having grown up in Massachusetts, I am an unapologetically (ok, a little apologetically) obnoxious Patriots fan. I played rugby for 8 years, so there will always be a small, special place in my heart for contact sports, even as I go about my day-to-day life a...
New England congregations have a great tradition of scattering during the summer. As one of our Unitarian Universalist-raised members likes to say, "God goes to Maine in the summer..." Or the beach, or to camp, or the mountains, or to other countries, or to visit relatives. Wherever God went this summer, I hope that you followed Them and had a soul-enriching time. I just returned from my own intensified God encounters white-...
"Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 18:3
Greetings and blessings to all of you during this hazy, hot, humid, heatwave! This Sunday will be our final summer worship service down in Willett Hall, where we'll hear homilist Leann Canty reflect on her experiences traveling to La Gonave, Haiti, and the unexpected places where she encountered the image of God. Leann writes,
This week, I will be...
Dear friends,
Music and Spirit can be described in much the same way. They both have the power to comfort, to soothe, to uplift, to focus, to heal (yes!), to energize, to calm, to inspire, to teach... to bring us closer to others, to enhance our prayers, and (among many other wonderful things) to give us a way to worship. We might even say that music is simply an outward and audible expression of the Holy Spirit. Nothing really could be LESS of a stretch than seeing the image of God...
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