The archives, I may have told you, are gorgeous. Church records were for many years hand- written in perfect calligraphy into a book with a marbled brown cover. The long, narrow book holds meeting minutes, attendance lists, expense records, and community covenants. But there’s more: Old bulletins tell of a sermon series “introducing His Royal Majesty,…

In high school, my friend Todd worked at a grocery store. I brought some bread and fruit through his checkout line once and was surprised to see a bright green sticker on his nametag that announced, “I’M NEW HERE!” I asked him, “Haven’t you worked here for a while now?” He told me, “I’ve been…

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1868 novel, ‘The Idiot’, one character asks another, “Is it true that you once said, ‘Beauty will save the world’?”  The question is often misquoted as a statement, an affirmative – but I think it’s worth considering as a question. We are surrounded by beauty – the peaks of Mt. Hood and…

“It’s a good day to be an American Baptist.” That’s what Judy Fackenthal, current president of our denomination, said to a small group of clergy women who gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico a few weeks ago too. It was near the end of our week – we’d spent time in prayer and study and…

One of the incredible gifts of my role here as pastor is getting to listen to people’s stories. Often, people with no real connection to this place – except that they happened to be driving by, or they once knew someone here, or they found themselves in need and someone pointed them this way – often…

There are so many Biblical heroes I want to pick fights with. Paul, first, with his rules about who can speak, and where. Second, any author who used the refrain “not counting women and children” (as in, “Then Jesus fed the hungry crowd, and there were about 5000 who ate, not counting women and children.”…