This is a frequent word of advice we might receive from trusted people in our lives. However, we all know that letting go is just hard. When something we care about so much is on the line, it's hard to relinquish our control of the situation. This week, we come to a passage of scripture from Mark 10:17-31. Here Jesus instructs his listeners to not just follow the commandments, but truly to follow him. He doesn't just mean following his advice, he

I recall asking my mother this question and I recall my two sons asking me that question at different stages in their lives. The “good” is not the death of Jesus nor how it tragically happened, but that it happened by plan of God; by the giving of Jesus and the love of them for all of us in the world who sin daily. So, what is so good about the day in which Jesus gave his life for us?

Truth. Although I come to you to talk about the state of our nation and how to deal with it as a Christian, I need to warn you that those who do not want to say they made a mistake, do not want the word accountability or responsibility for something to mean them, or simply do not like conflict, well they are the one who are always most vocal and quickest to tell me that we should never bring politics

Equality and Justice for All We here at St John’s have stood for over 20 years as a pillar of strength and support for the LGBTQ community and their rights.  While the struggle of this community is still ongoing, it would be selfish of us to not speak up for another community of people that is hurting, which include members of our congregation and faith. We stand hand in hand with our brothers and sisters of color in the continued

The wall against LGBTQ persons in the United Methodist Church has begun to come down. This June—following the recent disaster of May when our once-every-four-years General Conference, meeting in Portland, Oregon, kicked the can down the road regarding being an inclusive denomination and the conservative, orthodox delegates won every issue—several Annual Conferences started taking the wall apart, stone by stone. June is the season of “Annual Conferences” in the United Methodist Church. These gatherings of clergy and lay delegates

Yesterday, the UMC Bishop in Kansas announced that efforts at a “Just Resolution” failed and that the Bishop recommended to the Nebraska-Kansas Annual Conference to proceed to a church trial for a pastor. This pastor, Rev. Cynthia Meyer, came out to her Kansas congregation during a January 3rd sermon. The “Just Resolution” is a mediation process for pastors and annual conferences recommended as a grace-filled way of handling church-violation charges against a pastor for being in a same-sex relationship

As evidenced by this year’s presidential race, Americans today are inundated by situations of fear, uneasiness, pain, crisis, and mistrust. So much of our dead-lock and polarization is because we are constantly setting ourselves over and against each other. We believe this is because the events of the past fifteen years have reverberated with the earthquake of a collapse of privilege: 9/11 shattered our image of ourselves as those who had a place of National Privilege, seeing ourselves as

So, are we really a divided church during these polarizing days? Here’s my attempt to keep all of us up to date on what’s happening as we find ourselves rapidly approaching the 2016 General Conference (May 10-20 in Portland, Oregon) as a “divided United Methodist Church.” First an historical backdrop: In 1972, in a last-minute parliamentary gesture, the UMC General Conference added these words to the church’s social principles: “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” In subsequent

While folks everywhere have mothers and many will gather in churches to honor their mothers, I suspect that many here at St John’s do not know that a Methodist mother created what we now celebrate every second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day. In the late 1860s, before there was an official Mother’s Day holiday in the U.S., a Methodist mom organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote peace and

As you may know, St John’s has begun conversations about becoming “dually affiliated” with the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church. This is a conversation that has been brewing behind the scenes among church members, with our pastors, and staff, for some time, and began formally a couple of weeks ago at our January congregational meeting. Lots of discussion, good questions, and unbridled enthusiasm was experienced at that meeting; but here’s an update for those who