Liturgy: Palm Sunday Lessons and Carols, Mark 10:46-12:44 (March 24, 2024)

  *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #199, “Filled With Excitement”
Hymn GTG #281, “Holy Spirit Come to Us”
Hymn GTG #200, “A Cheering, Chanting, Dizzy Crowd”

Liturgy: Lent 5 Lessons and Carols, Mark 9:33-10:45 (March 17, 2024)

 *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #188, “Jesus Loves Me!”
Hymn GTG #281, “Holy Spirit Come to Us”
Hymn GTG #749, “Come! Live in the Light!”

Liturgy: Lent 4 Lessons and Carols, Mark 8:22-9:32 (March 10, 2024)

 *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #410, “God Is Calling through the Whisper”
Hymn GTG #281, “Holy Spirit Come to Us”
Hymn GTG #463, “How Firm a Foundation”

Liturgy: Lent 3 Lessons and Carols, Mark 6:30-8:21 (March 3, 2024)

*You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #819, “Be Still, My Soul"
Hymn GTG #281, “Holy Spirit Come to Us”
Hymn GTG #498, “Loaves Were Broken, Words Were Spoken”

Liturgy: Lent 2 Lessons and Carols, Mark 4:35-6:29 (February 25, 2024)

     *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #724, “O Jesus, I Have Promised"

Hymn GTG #281, “Holy Spirit Come to Us”

Hymn GTG #542, “God Be with You Till We Meet Again”

Thirteen-Year-Old Seminary Paper About Prayer Beads

Thirteen years ago, I wrote a paper in seminary about Prayer Beads. It is FAR from my best work, and it's not the most compelling read (I hope my writing has improved since then) but it has a lot of interesting information about the history of prayer beads as used in spiritual practices. Since our Lenten theme this year is about being still and knowing that God is God, and since we created prayer beads in worship tonight, I thought I'd make this paper available as a resource for anyone who might be curious and want to develop their own practice.

(Also, from tonight's worship service, to prove that my writing has gotten better:)

Liturgy: Lent 1 Lessons and Carols, Mark 2:1-4:34 (February 18, 2024)

    *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #738, “O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee”

Hymn GTG #281, “Holy Spirit Come to Us”

Hymn GTG #542, “God Be with You Till We Meet Again”

2023 Lenten Devotional: Unlocking Salvation

*You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.* 

Daily Devotional for Lent below --> 

Prayer Cairn Revisited

Today was a beautiful day in Caldwell (60 degrees and sunny...sorry, Rochesterians!) so I decided to take a break from sermon writing and take care of a project I've been meaning to do for a while: neatening up the church's prayer cairn.

Sermon: “Sensing the Sacred: Taste the Divine”, Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7/Matthew 4:1-11 (March 1, 2020)

(This is the second sermon in our Lenten series, "Sensing the Sacred". 

The first sermon can be found here.)

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Food is DANGEROUS. Or at least, we tend to think of food as dangerous. How many of you have ever described yourself as “bad” for taking a second helping at dinner? How many of you have ever described dessert as “a temptation”? If you’re giving something up for Lent, how many of you have chosen to forgo some sort of food item? Our relationship with food isn’t all lighthearted self-deprivation, either: over 30 million Americans struggle with disordered eating;[1] for these people, any event involving food is a minefield of emotional, physical, and psychological danger. What’s more, about 32 million Americans have allergies to food, with 200,000 people being hospitalized for them in the U.S. every year.[2] For these people, the prospect of eating food at any given time can literally be a matter of life and death. Suffice it to say, even though food is the necessary fuel to sustain human life, many of us have a complicated relationship with it, for all sorts of reasons.

Braiding and Brokenness: The Significance of Our Lenten Practice

It's been a few weeks that Lent has been over, now. Since I've gotten some emotional distance from the difficulty of the Triduum and the catch-up work that always happens after Easter Sunday, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on our Lenten practice this year.

Many people of all ages (even some from outside our immediate congregational community!) took part in our lenten braiding project. Each Sunday, I collected the braids that people turned in, and spent my afternoon weaving them together by hand, one by one, using a continuous piece of yarn--my own personal Lenten practice.