Seeking Authentic Voice

I haven't posted on my blog in awhile. Lately, my blog posts seem to be limited to my Sunday sermons. I'd like to write more and about other topics, but sermons seem to be all I can produce. And, since the middle of July I've been on vacation, and then for the entire month of August I was facilitating sermon dialogues with the parish. This is the third year I have facilitated congregational dialogues during the sermon time for each of our three Sunday morning services. They are always a bit risky, will people be willing to be vulnerable and speak? What will they bring up? How much should I talk? We seemed to have hit our stride this year, with the congregation being more confident in speaking up and me being more adept at facilitating the conversation and keeping it going. The congregation brought up many good, insightful points, and really dug deep to listen and comment. Now I am thick into preparations for launching the fall season and program year. One of my areas ...

A reflection on the readings for Proper 19C: Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10 We are currently holding a weekday Bible study on Tuesdays on the Gospel of Luke. Michael Johnston in his book, “Engaging the Word” suggests that there are three ways we can engage scripture in a Bible study. These three are: the historical context, the literal context, and the prophetic context. The historical context refers to what was happening in the world at the time this scripture passage was written. The literal context is a reminder to us to pay attention to what the text actually says. By this he means that sometimes we have heard a story so often that we begin to fill in pieces of subtext. This is particularly relevant in the Christmas, Holy Week, and Easter narratives. For example the Christmas story, the birth of Jesus is found in two of the Gospels, but they tell a different part of the story. In Luke we hear of the story of the conception of Jesus, the travel to Bethlehem...