Come to the Water: Children and Youth Led Worship
Our Children and Youth led worship this morning reflecting on this summer's passport theme "Come to the Water."...
Christmas Eve Worship: For Good News of Great Joy
Just the other day, I was checking out in the line at Target with what I was sure was the last Christmas present I’d need to buy (spoiler alert, it wasn’t!)...
Clear Out Your Impatience
In the hills overlooking Oakland, California, there stands a tree that time and neighborly affection has nicknamed the “Grandfather” or “Old Survivor.” ...
Clear Out Your Independence
There once was a young man, said to be the most pigheaded fellow in town, and a young woman, said to be the most mule-headed gal around, and of course they fell...
Clear Out Your Control
Five years ago this week, we entered a wilderness like the world hadn’t seen in a generation. The global coronavirus pandemic had reached the tipping point of...
Clear Out Your Heart
This past Saturday, I took to our sunroom with what an author I like calls “a heap of big black trash bag energy.” I call it a sunroom instead of perhaps it...
The Good Life: Astounded
“And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.” Today’s text is one filled with mystery. We can read the story of th...
The Good Life: Reconciled
The great author, teacher, activist, minister in the 20th century fight for civil rights, Howard Thurman, used to tell a story about his grandmother. She owned ...
The Good Life: Leveled
This was one of those weeks in sermon preparation when the plan didn’t unfold as I might have expected, a week where the Spirit didn’t move according to pri...
The Good Life: Caught
It’s a real gift as a pastor’s kid-turned-pastor to have my pastor parents here in Winston-Salem, and icing on the cake when my dad teaches a class I get to...
The Good Life: Fulfilled
Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about a weekend retreat she once attended with about seventy folks interested in deepening their experience of the Christian ...
The Good Life: Proclaimed
We’re nearing the five year anniversary of one of the most ubiquitous phrases used by the modern American. No, I’m not talking about “we’re living in un...
The Good Life: Delighted
I’m going to let you in on a pastor secret. Every pastor has a wild wedding story. We do. We file them away next to the extra splashy baptism stories and the ...
The Good Life: Beloved
Among the top 25 most-watched TED talks ever is one called “what makes a good life?”1 In it, researcher and psychiatrist Robert Waldinger reflects on the Ha...
See and Be Radiant!
Nearly five years ago after the pandemic had shut down so much of life as we’d known it, our family decided – like so many others – that we had to get out...
Home By Another Way
I grew up next door to my grandparents and needless to say I spent a lot of time with them, including road trips. We would travel from New Bern to their home in...
Do Not Be Afraid
Every year around this time, the internet seems to explode in an array of loudness: sales too good to pass up, houses too lit up to avoid, year-in-review hot ta...
Blessed are You
Pastor Tom Long tells a story from his childhood about a game he and his neighborhood buddies would play to pass the time on rainy afternoons when they couldn...
Service of Lessons and Carols
Our annual Advent Service of Lessons & Carols was a magnificent time of worship together! Enjoy the story of Emmanuel, God-with-us, in scripture and in song...
All Flesh Shall See
Just a few weeks ago, the world lost one of the greats: Tony Campolo – pastor, writer, storyteller to all. Among his many stories was one I’ve told you befo...
Your Redemption is Drawing Near
What is saving your life right now? This question’s popularity comes with a history of its own. As legend has it, beloved Baptist-turned-Episcopalian pastor, ...
When Life Together is Hard: Thanksgivings
The history of the Thanksgiving holiday is what you might call… complicated. It’s complicated like most human-declared events are, layered in different pers...
When Life Together is Hard: Institutions
“Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people. Close the doors and hear them pray. Open the doors, they all walk away.”&...
When Life Together is Hard: Appearances
As the story goes, a little old Jewish lady sits down on a plane next to a big Swedish man and keeps staring at him. Finally she turns to him and says, ‘Pardo...
When Life Together Is Hard: Essentials
Every year on All Saints Sunday, I’m struck again by the profound gift and challenge of life together. I see in your faces the grief you’ve experienced as y...
Speaking, Hearing, Seeing, Following
I’ve been listening to the Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten’s recently released memoir lately. I love an audiobook- especially when it is a memoir or autobiogra...
We Have This Treasure
There once lived a water carrier. Every morning, as soon as the sun rose, she walked from her home to collect water in two earthen pots that hung from a long po...
Church is for Life Together
Think with me for a minute of the groups of which you’ve been a part. Maybe a sports team, a company staff, a choir, a neighborhood association. Maybe a polit...
Church is for Legacy
If you had to summarize your life in six words, what would they be? That was the question posed years ago from an online magazine to a number of writers, both k...
Church is for Accesibility
One of the all-time great TV shows – in my humble opinion – was The West Wing, back in popularity – again! – like everything else from the 1990s...
Church is for Sustainability
Tell me – what are the durable stories in your life? You know the ones I’m talking about: the stories that just seem to keep carrying on, the stories that l...
Church is for Hospitality
Yesterday afternoon, my family had a spirited round of conversations on our back porch. We were in the midst of a day-long basketball tournament for Liam, and h...
What is Church For?
I’ve told you before the story from Dr. Fred Craddock, the late pastor and storyteller, who shared about the first church he pastored....
Work and Rest
It was a Tuesday – September 5, 1882 to be specific – that New York City celebrated its first Labor Day....
Bread and Circuses
About this time last year, a viral trend caught fire on the social media site, TikTok....
Soul Food: Wonder Bread
I want to tell you a story about the history of Wonder Bread. You know Wonder Bread, right? ...
Soul Food: The World’s First Pot-Luck
Perhaps something you should know about your pastor is that among the things in this world that draw my highest religious devotion most are, well, peaches. I am...
Defying Norms: Disconnect and Heal
Today I invite you to remember this: You have to disconnect to connect. You have to disconnect to connect. ...
Defying Norms: The Risk of Getting Political
I must begin by noting the title of this sermon—“Defying the Norms: The Risks of Getting Political”— was chosen months ago. The assassination attempt ye...
Defying Norms: Loosening Our Grip
Perhaps you know Parker Palmer – the theologian and author and speaker whose book, Let Your Life Speak, is the one we give to our graduates and who is beloved...
Defying Norms: Citizens of Audacious Hope
When you first look at the painting, you’re not entirely sure what you see. On a fairly dim background sits a woman, alone and blindfolded. As you look more c...
Defying Norms: Silent and Still
Today’s gospel story may be short, but it is rich and full with a word from the Lord today, a word of good news for each of us and all of us to hear. So let...
Defying Norms: Doing What is Ours to Do
Two summers ago, I experienced one of the great gifts of my life when you extended an invitation to me to take a sabbatical (as our Amy McClure is experiencing ...
Defying Norms: Insider/Outsider
When the Russian-Finnish border was being redrawn, the old story goes, a farmer was told that the boundary line passed right through the middle of his land...
Defying Norms: Prioritizing Humanity
John Buchanan, the great pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, one told a story about his best instruction in sabbath-keeping: “My instructor in Sa...
All Nature Sings: Planet Earth
Over these weeks with the Psalms, we have been encouraged in our living by the psalmists’ words of creation and thanksgiving, of intimacy and care, of praise ...
All Nature Sings: Humans
I learned this week that the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is currently collecting answers to the question, “what does it mean to be human?”...
All Nature Sings: Water
Experiences in the water often become core memories for us, don’t they? Maybe for you it’s the memory of deep sea fishing with your grandpa, or cannon-balli...
All Nature Sings: Land
If you’re one of the lucky ones who lives in Louisville, Kentucky, the first Saturday in May isn’t just Derby Day as you might imagine....
All Nature Sings: Sky
In about week three after the pandemic shut down our schools and churches and common spaces and shuttered so many of us indoors, my family had made our way thro...
Coming to Ourselves
Thank you, Emily, for the warm welcome. And thank you to my mom and dad for thinking that this was a good idea. It’s an honor, and frankly a...
Who Sinned?: Transforming Power and Authority
I am truly grateful for the invitation to be with you all this morning and to share Midwives of a Movement with you, if you joined us during the Sunday School h...
Here & There & Everywhere
I had a bit of a chuckle when picking the title for today’s Easter sermon, thinking that perhaps half of you would hear “here and there and everywhere” an...
Again & Again: Emptying & Filling
Our church is one of countless around the world who are marking Palm Sunday today with rituals of celebration. We saw it with our children and youth waving palm...
Again & Again: Losing & Finding
Have you heard the story about the guy who loses his keys? There’s a guy… and he loses his keys! He’s looking and he’s looking and he’s looking for hi...
Again & Again: Perishing & Living
One Wednesday night awhile back, my kids, along with some of their friends and teachers here were doing as they do – running in circles around Kelly Auditoriu...
Again & Again: Tearing Down & Raising Up
This past week, I enjoyed a lecture on Monday night over at Wake Forest’s Divinity School. As I was entering the building, I shared in brief conversation with...
Again & Again: Gaining & Losing
In 1958, the communist government of China under Mao Zedong’s leadership decided they’d had enough. The offender? Not another country, or a protest group, o...
Again & Again: Near & Far
There once was a young man who had gone to the desert to pursue a holy life. For months on end, he fasted, he prayed, he pondered the meaning of scripture, and ...
Distended
It's Ash Wednesday, the day in our Christian year when we consider the truth of our finality and fragility: that 'from dust we came, and to the dust we shall re...
Tender Care: Bringing it Down the Mountain
Famed conductor Arturo Toscanini is said to have completed sixty rehearsals of what was, at the time, a new opera we now know to be Bellini’s classic Norma. B...
Tender Care: Keeping Time
Tick, tick, tick, tick. I titled today’s sermon “Keeping Time,” with one memory firmly fixed on my mind. It is that of the wooden triangular box that s...
Tender Care: A Spiritual Detox
If you’ve been following along for these Epiphany weeks, you know we’re spending time with the Gospel of Mark. The most abrupt and fast-paced of all the gos...
Tender Care: Fishing For People
Y’all - I love my wife very much and we often get people asking us how we met, what we love most about each other, what we do for fun, etc. The reality is, mo...
Tender Care: Living Under Water
As the scene opens, Pete, Delmar, and Everett are seated around a campfire: hungry, scared, and on the run. They’re outlaws you see, having barely escaped a M...
The Light We Follow
This year for Christmas, one of our children’s favorite presents came from their fun Uncle Adam and Aunt Adrienne, who gave each kid LED strip lights for thei...
The End is Only the Beginning
The end of the Christmas story is only the beginning. You don’t have to answer this question out loud, but how many of you all are willing to admit that you ...
To Dwell Among Us: For Fulfillment
We’re talking about fulfillment today, and I’m not just referring to the Amazon Fulfillment Centers all around the country who are in their final press to C...
Service of Lessons & Carols
Our annual Advent Service of Lessons & Carols was one for the ages! Enjoy the story of Emmanuel, God-with-us, in scripture and in song!...
To Dwell Among Us: For Nearness
Are we there yet? Is it time? Has my package arrived? Is my treatment almost over? Will we ever … get there? Fill in the blank with any of the yearnings in ou...
Intending to Do Good
Perhaps you’ve felt the seasonal confusion this week—making your Thanksgiving meal while Halloween skeletons and pumpkins look over your shoulder, watching ...
To Dwell Among Us: For the Way
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” Mark writes as this first gospel begins....
Tears and Thanks
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you....
Intending to Be Ready
If you are a music major in any college or university, the classic rite of passage as a junior or senior is the preparation of your recital....
Attending Church: Presence
Cartoonist and comedian Seth MacFarlane, creator of “The Family Guy” show, was interviewed a dozen years ago on NPR’s Fresh Air about a new album he had c...
Attending Church: Abundant Imagination
If I told you a world without poverty is possible - would you believe me? I grew up in a family that faithfully attended a small Baptist church in the mountains...
Attending Church: Fruitfulness
Over these past few weeks, we’ve been looking together in the parables of the Gospel of Matthew, listening to Jesus use these short, enigmatic stories intende...
Attending Church: Responsibility
These fall weeks, we’ve journeyed with Jesus through the Gospel of Matthew – first in an agrarian stretch of parables through Matthew chapter 13, learning o...
Attending Church: Stewardship
There once was a man named Pahom. Pahom loved land, truly more than anything in the world. He loved the land so much that he convinced himself it was necessary ...
Tending: What’s Priceless
As the story goes, an oyster saw a loose pearl that had fallen into the crevice of a rock, right on the ocean floor. It took great effort, but she finally manag...
Tending: What’s Small
The kingdom of heaven islike a mustard seed, Jesussays. The kingdom of heaven islike yeast. We’re back with Jesus in the parables, in these two tiny stories f...
Tending: What’s Different
Have you seen that precious video that’s made its rounds on social media, where children of all kinds are paired onscreen and asked, “what makes you two dif...
Tending: To Hold and to Stretch
It was the summer of 1946 when a rumor began in South America that there was a famine sweeping across the continent. ...
Tell Me A Story
Barbara Brown Taylor once told a story about a day she went to her local nursing home one afternoon to celebrate communion with the guests there....
Then and Now: Purpose (The Story of Joseph)
In her clever short story called “Personal Testimony,” author Lynna Williams tells of the 12-year old preacher’s daughter who goes to a fundamentalist Bib...
Then and Now: Power (The Story of Jacob’s Sons)
A few weeks ago, I suggested that you all might be humming the songs from the movie musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, after we watched it together on our Friday ...
Then and Now: Struggle (The Story of Jacob)
This time last year, I completed a journey I thought would just about do me in....
Then and Now: Conflict(The Story of Jacob, Esau, and Rebekah)
I feel confident that in a few months when all the “best of” lists begin to come out, that the memoir called Spare will be at the top. You know the one. ...
Then and Now: Testing and Providing (The Story of Isaac)
Today, in our Then and Now sermon series exploring the Book of Genesis, we turn to Genesis chapter 22. Here, we encounter a familiar story, which is rich with i...
Then and Now: Laughter (The Story of Sarah)
Back in 2009, there was a young man who was beginning to be noticed by the NBA....
Then and Now: Oppression (The Story of Hagar)
He shuffles through this world, practically daring someone to see him. Overlooked and oppressed by every earthly measure, he prefers to blend in and be passed b...
Then and Now: Promise (The Story of Abraham)
I was a tender 12 years old, and God had called my family to leave our home of sweet small town life in Laurens, South Carolina for the booming metropolis of Kn...
Alienation and Reconciliation (The Story of Noah)
If you’re like many in the Christian tradition, the last time you may have thought about Noah was as a child yourself, or when a child in your life got those ...
Then and Now: Boundaries (The Story of Adam and Eve)
Have you read the story called The Giving Tree? You know this one, don’t you – the story that poet Shel Silverstein gave us about the tree who loved the lit...
Then and Now: Goodness (The Story of God)
I bet you know that story about the little girl, who could be one of yours or one of ours, who drew a picture in Sunday School one week....
The Resurrection Way Ahead
The late preacher George Buttrick was once sitting on an airplane, readying for his flight, and making notes for an upcoming sermon he was planning out. ...
The Resurrection Way of Us
You’ve heard me tell pastor Tom Long’s story, where, as the brand new pastor of a small church, he decided to try out a new teaching opportunity — a pasto...
The Resurrection Way of Witness
We have in my house a new hot item, the most fought-over item in the house. Now you may think perhaps it’s a toy, a video game, maybe a book, or maybe even ou...
The Resurrection Way that Abides
“I love you, now leave me alone.” That’s the title of an article you can find from this week’s New York Times, subtitled: “What Friendship Means to an...
The Resurrection Way Home
Just this week, our country’s Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an 81-page public health advisory for the latest epidemic to sweep our nation....
The Resurrection Way of Recognition
Jake and I returned; retrieved our coffee and following the benediction we quickly joined the nursery line and found our Jude was sitting at the counter with th...
The Resurrection Way of Memory
Growing up, I spent many evenings fishing in the family pond. In fact, some of my fondest memories involve sitting, fishing pole in hand, beneath the same old...
The Resurrection Way of Surprise
read this week a story from Smithsonian magazine about a travel writer from the early part of the 1900s who loved to tell strange stories....
The Resurrection Way of Life
Over the past month or so, I’ve noticed an increase in the number of stories in our news and social media that reflect on the three covid-era years we’ve co...
The End of Ways and Means
We’ve spent this school year “on the way” with Jesus, examining the ancient roads he walked, the paths toward God he proclaimed, the journey of life and f...
Lessons Along the Way: Motion vs. Action
On the first day of his film photography class at the University of Florida, professor Jerry Uelsmann decided to do a semester-long experiment....
Lessons Along the Way: Finding the Good Path
Back in the summer of 2019, I traveled with our youth to Passport Camp. That year, Passport was held at my alma mater after all (go Paladins!), and any chance t...
Lessons Along the Way: Knowing Our Place
Jesus continues with his encouragement away from what distracts us from God’s kingdom here on earth and toward that which brings life....
Lessons Along the Way: Do Not Worry
We’re moving steadily through Jesus’ lessons along the way in the Sermon on the Mount, considering over these past weeks the things that capture Jesus’ im...
Lessons Along the Way: What’s at the Heart
“For Christians,” Frederick Buechner says, “to observe the forty days of Lent is to tithe for a holy use roughly a tenth of each year's days.”...
Lessons Along the Way: Shaping the Inner Life
It's Ash Wednesday, the day in our Christian year when we consider the truth of our finality and fragility: that 'from dust we came, and to the dust we shall re...
Lessons Along the Way: On a Moral Imagination
As the story goes, Mullah Nasrudden once found a diamond by the roadside. Muslim law dictated that finders became keepers only if they first announced their fin...
Lessons Along the Way: What’s Hard Between Us
Perhaps it’s the coincidence that this year finds Valentine’s Day just a couple of days past the Super Bowl, but I find that I have hearts on my mind and, w...
Lessons Along the Way: Blessing
On a warm Sunday morning in May 1911, a group of 13 friends set out by foot and by buggy from Highlands, NC to Whiteside. ...
Home by Another Way: Sent
Today, we conclude our month of talking through the Epiphany passages of Jesus....
Home by Another Way: Called
In the comic strip, Linus had gotten fed up with Lucy. She was up to her self-focused ways again, and he was over it. ...
Home by Another Way: Tempted
“A rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find a Southern fisherman lying leisurely beside his boat. ‘Why aren’t you fishing?’ asked the ind...
Home by Another Way: Baptized
If you’ve been following our worship themes this school year, you know we’ve been exploring the language, “On the Way.” After a fall spent unpacking the...
Home By Another Way
The visit of the wise men to the manger in Bethlehem is one of the most beloved stories associated with the birth of Jesus. It has been celebrated in art, used ...