It was as bad a worship service as I have ever been a part of. I came to call it “nuclear Sunday” as the congregation almost melted down. Our implosion began just before the benediction with an announcement that a beloved staff member had resigned, upon which, the aforementioned staff member stood up and loudly […]

Every Sunday morning, Diane loaded four grandchildren and two neighborhood children in her oversized late model Buick and drove to church. Sometimes Diane signed the children into Sunday school, but usually the six children raced up the stairs and Diane headed to Fellowship Hall for coffee. Diane pulled 4 overnight shifts at the hospital every […]

Matthew 14 is a portrait of a day of ministry with Jesus. All day long, fueled by compassion, Jesus offered healthcare and when the sun began to fade, other needs arose. The disciples came to Jesus concerned that the crowd had nothing to eat, “This is an isolated place and it’s getting late. Send the […]

I stood there with a little basket filled with self-serve communion cups, really nice ones, consecrated by clergy from West End UMC. I wore Belmont’s Pride shirt and a colorful clergy stole. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the Communion Table, asking people if they wanted to receive holy communion. For the past […]

The Bible is not a history book, at least not in any traditional sense. It lifts up some stories and skips some centuries completely. Beginning with Abraham and Sarah, Genesis takes 40 chapters to tell us about four generations. And what mattered to our spiritual ancestors may baffle our modern minds. Why is an entire […]

We lingered too long along the clifftop overlooks. We had not seen each other in months, so our trail lunch turned into a reunion filled with stories of our new babies. It was a cold November day in the Smokies, and Tom had packed a small camp stove. We ended lunch with decadent hot chocolate […]

 On Tuesday, are you heading downtown for the fireworks? Nashville will use 200 miles of wire, 16 tractor trailer beds, and 4 barges in order to shoot 40,000 pounds of fireworks into the sky as the Nashville Symphony plays patriotic flare. Maybe you plan to get to the main stage early and do a little […]

The May rains were not enough and the dry spell lingered all summer, cows drank down ponds, crops failed, dust coated everything. Around 3:30am, Uncle Clellon would whisper, “Honey, get up.” We skipped coffee. I slid into the truck’s passenger seat and closed my eyes as we rode to ‘the other place’, then down into […]

Hi I am Paul Purdue, Mary Jane, Lee and Colby’s cousin, and the Pastor at Belmont UMC in Nashville Tennessee, where we believe everyone is beloved by God and that clergy generally wear robes for funerals. But I speak to you today as a family member, so I wore a suit, but I thought I […]

Do you ever think about how the Bible opens? “When God began to create…” Did you sense  the liturgical pattern: the text calling, responding, repeating the chorus like a hymn? Imagine a cantor’s melodic chanting resonating through the walls of an ancient synagogue as a new Torah cycle began with God beginning to create!  God […]