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I wrote a "breaking news" report for 12th Street’s Easter Sunrise service. If there would have been a cable news network 2,000 years ago, the morning Jesus rose from the dead might have looked a little like this … [News Anchor]: We interrupt your regular Sunday morning routine to bring you some breaking news related … Read more
Today is Good Friday. And this morning I participated in my first Good Friday service in Huntingdon. From 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm, we rotated from church to church meeting in seven historic downtown churches. We spent about 20 minutes in each church, then walked to the next church. The host pastor of each church … Read more
Several months ago, I did a message on unity. My point was, oneness is God’s dream for us. Jesus certainly prayed for unity, praying that we would be one with God and with one another (John 17). But does oneness mean sameness? I don’t think so. I believe God values both unity and diversity. The … Read more
Friday night was “date night,” and we went to see the movie Meet the Robinsons. After having seen the previews we decided that we wanted to watch this one. We especially loved the woman with the caffeine patches (which you may have seen in the commercials/previews). No side effects there! We enjoyed the movie, although … Read more
On Monday, our district had its annual "day apart with the Bishop." Bishop Jane Allen Middleton talked about the recent results of a leadership tool that all the pastors in the conference completed last fall (including five "observers" for each of us, three people from our congregations, a colleague, and our district superintendent). I may … Read more
We made a lot of progress on the required paperwork for the adoption process today. The top priority, at this point, is a pre-application to Americans for International Aid & Adoption (AIAA), which basically puts us on a waiting list for a formal application (after a screening process). AIAA is the agency that we have … Read more
We spent Friday evening and most of the day Saturday at the Renovare conference in Camp Hill, PA. Renovare is the ministry of Richard Foster, best known for his book, Celebration of Discipline, which we both were required to read in seminary in the early 1990s. The word "renovare" comes from the Latin translation of … Read more
Previously, we wrote about our first dissertation-related deadline. We had a little work remaining after the weekend, and we also wanted to read/edit each other’s work before mailing them, so it took a little longer than we had anticipated. It was intense, but it was also a very good first step in the process. But, … Read more
This morning, we completed another big step in the adoption process. Our home visit is now behind us. A social worker from our adoption agency visited us this morning and spent a few hours talking about our backgrounds, life experiences, and our hopes/plans for the future. We also talked about which country we will adopt … Read more
It’s now "crunch time" as we near our first big deadline for our dissertation projects — Friday, 16 March 2007. T-minus 7 days! We had hoped to be further along than we are but we think we’re still within range of meeting this deadline. 3/16 isn’t actually a hard and fast deadline; it’s more of … Read more