Often times, churches get confused about the purpose of their youth ministry. Kids have sports, schools, and after school programs to be involved in that’s all about them and their space. But in the congregation, I’d say it’s a different thing.
In the church, the congregation as a whole is called to raise children from infancy to adulthood in a wide, extended family. (more…)
A lot of people are very invested in the Hunger Games, many of them young women. Here are 10 things that youth ministers ought to know about the novels and how they affect their kids.
Despite all the grief that this story gets for being violent, strange, and over dramatic, it also teaches young people how to preserve a self in great danger, and how to resist oppression through genuine acts of kindness. Even the evil empire that the revolution resists is a thinly veiled Roman Empire. (more…)
One of my earliest memories of church as a child was of Advent candles. I don’t really have an image in my head, but rather the calm cadence of my mother’s voice, and the smell of sulfur after a match struck. It’s a very sense-based memory, but it is a memory of watching a candle being lit, and the ritual and purpose for that candle.
Here are some articles that have helped me in the past few weeks when I think about how to approach what I see happening on the news and in my community.
Last week, I posted a version of an article that I wrote for the Hamline Church newsletter in December. The topic was being a Godbearer in Advent, on pausing to make room to be an incarnation of God in our daily lives. This idea is inspired by The Godbearing Life, by youth ministry extraordinaire Kenda Creasy Dean.
Now, though, as I think more about it, and as we approach the third week of Advent, there’s more to be said.
Being a Godbearer is making space for God to enter into the world through us. Now more so than ever, I think, with the rage and outcry over the grand jury decisions in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases, we are called to make space for a new thing to happen in us.
Because I work with young people, I have the privilege of never taking anything for granted—even church. I work with people at that stage of life when they are just figuring out who they are and who they want to become, and nothing is sacrosanct when you’re trying to figure out the world.
Here’s the sermon I preached on 11/9 at Hamline Church! I preached on The Prodigal Son, which is Luke 15:11-32.
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Incase you haven’t noticed, it’s the second Sunday of Stewardship Month here at Hamline Church. Stewardship month is a time when we intentionally bring the topic of money into the worship service. We do this at this time every year, so that the issue of finances can be treated with the same discerning integrity and theological depth with which we treat the rest of our faith.
Additionally, this is also my first Sunday in the pulpit as your new Director of Youth and Family Ministry. My job here at Hamline Church is to provide support and programming for teenagers and their families, so that we all may be more spiritually enriched by the presence of young people in our congregation.
Mark DeVries in “Family Based Youth Ministry” says theres a crisis in the relationship between adults and teenagers–that teenagers are isolated and left to fend for themselves, and that is a crisis solely of our generation. Is that reflected in the popular literature for young people?
Photos and musing on my maiden voyage on Hercules, my new bike.
On Monday I packed everything I owned into this little Toyota and headed for the Twin Cities. It was an adventure. Sort of like driving a tiny truck. My side mirrors were all prepared so that I could see behind me. I had a car-top carrier full of all of my clothing lashed to the top of the car. It made a clickity click thwop sound the whole way there. (Luckily, though, it was only about as loud as a heavy rain.)
Here’s how I did it. (more…)
This is a goodbye letter to the city that has shaped and built me over the past three years, a place that I am so happy to call my second home. This is all about Chicago as I’ve experienced it these past three years.
Sermon for September 7, 2014 at The Clare
Proper 18 Year A
Ezekiel 33:7-11, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20
Click here to see the lectionary readings.
We have in our lessons today two concepts that may appear, at first, to be in contradiction with one another: love and conflict.
In his letter, Paul tells the church in Rome that it is now the moment for them to wake from sleep. They are called to love one another with a love that fulfills the law that they know from their Israelite heritage.
Hanging out in Staunton with Babylon 5, the old-world church yard, and driving back cross country…
What happens when all order breaks down in a train trip, and when you get stuck on a mountain in West Virginia with a bunch of very upset people…
These past couple of weeks, I’ve been traveling in my various “home base” locations. They have both been magnificent trips: times to reconnect with people, times to sit and reflect, times to explore, and times to turn into a science fiction vegetable, and times to get a handle on my life.
This story in our gospel lesson has always bothered me. Jesus really isn’t the nice guy in this story. In fact, he’s kind of a jerk in his story. It’s really out of character and confusing.
Here is the sermon I preached at The Clare this morning on the feeding of the five thousand found in Matthew. You can get the readings here.
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One of my favorite made-up words in the English Language is the word hangry.
I love this word because it is a simple smushing of two words together, which–when combined–perfectly describe a state of being that is both hungry and angry, and yet a phenomenon all of its own.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty…
In which Maggie muses about memories of playing in the rain when she was a kid.
“According to Zechariah, this is where God chooses to be. God chooses to reside in the place that the ancient Israelites could not understand, the place where humility and triumph meet—a place they could never have expected.”