Anxiety is a growing reality in our country and world. We all have struggled with it. There is much research that has been done on anxiety. Some of the most successful businesses today are those that work to help with our anxiety (apps, supplements, gyms, etc.) Many of them do help! At the end of the day each of us needs some place to put our stress. This week in worship we come to one of the Letters of Paul

You are the light of the world! We may not always feel like it, but this we know is true! Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 that WE, God's people, are the light of the world spreading God's love to all. This week we continue going through Paul's letters in our series, Falling Forward, and now we come upon the letter to the Philippians. For a group of people who have grown weary and tired, Paul reminds them of the good work they

"Bind us together, Lord, bind us together with cords that cannot be broken." This is the opening line of a hymn that has been playing in my head over and over recently. It is a sincere prayer of mine as we seek to do ministry here in Miami, and it was a prayer of mine leading up to a retreat I attended last week. Just last week, I participated in a Residence in Ministry retreat in Gainesville with my commissioning class.

Pottery is believed to be one of the earliest inventions of humanity, and for those who have never taken a pottery class in school, making a clay pot or any ceramic vessel requires time and patience. You start by mixing your materials, molding the mixture to the desired shape, and then putting your creation in an oven so that it bakes and hardens after it cools. The end product can take a multitude of shapes and can be used for

Failure is a scary word. None of us like to fail and all of us like to succeed. Our culture has taught us that these are the two categories we can fall into. Many of us have been taught that our lives and worth are defined by one of these two things…success and failure. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul reminds us that the measure of our lives is not success or failure but LOVE. Although the world cares about how

Have you ever messed up? We all have and we all will continue to mess up. It's a part of life. And yet, our scripture this week (Romans 3:9-24) reminds us that although we fall, we are met by grace. No matter who we are and no matter what we may have done, God's grace meets us when we fall. This week we begin a new sermon series called Falling Forward where we'll be journeying through the books of the New

While we have been preparing and bracing ourselves for this storm for nearly a week, today we woke up to the images and reports of the unimaginable devastation from Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida. It is unbelievable the damage and destruction this storm has caused. Many of us in South Florida have family and friends in the areas most affected and many of us even travel often to these places. This storm has hit close to home and we

Rain, Rain, Go Away How have you liked our daily rain cycle here in Miami? If you are not from here then you may not know that we have had afternoon storms every day for the past few weeks. I am sure the environment is loving the rain but it does seem to rain right around rush hour every afternoon which is not fun! In the scripture we are reading this week we come to the story where Jesus finds the

Leaning into Lib...and healing... Lib Carter was a member of our First Church Miami from birth and sang in the choir for 75 years. This past week we celebrated her life and legacy with her family, friends and church. The service was beautiful and hard. In so many ways the service was hard because Lib's passing also signified the passing of a very special generation in our church. The past few years I have done several funerals of Lib's friends.

Temptation! Have you ever been tempted? I'm sure we can all think of the daily encounters when we are tempted to indulge in extra sweets and not so healthy foods, drinks, etc. But there are also much deeper temptations. There are times when we've been tempted to gossip for the betterment of our own reputation. There are times we've wanted to give up on something that we really cared about. There are times we've wanted to take shortcuts even when we