A few weeks after my father died, I steadied myself for the first Sunday back preaching. I did not want my grief to interrupt my sermon. My sermon went fine, but as I came to the Communion Table the ritual landed in a new way. I raised my arms and said, “And so, with your […]
Tag Archives: christianity
Dear Belmonters, I spoke to a soldier last week who, like other federal workers, is working while not being paid because of the ongoing government shutdown. On Saturday, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will run out of funding leaving many people hungry. SNAP “provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget […]
Scientists have categorized somewhere around 160,000 different kinds of months. The four inch tulip-tree silk moth is part of the nearly 1 million varieties of insects in the world. A newborn baby Blue whale baby is 23 feet long and weighs 2 tons. It is one of the 1.5 million categorized species of animals in […]
On this world Communion Sunday, as I preach in English and Hai Htoo and Wisinee translate into Karen, there will be moments where you may have to wait until someone says something you understand. Could we take these slower moments and practice loving our neighbors as ourselves? Maybe we could do some holy day dreaming […]
I answered my phone and an unfamiliar but cheerful voice boom, “Hey Paul, this is Tony Felts. I’m the director of Parks and Recreation and I am so glad you have signed Lewis and Caleb up to play baseball”. After some pleasantries, Tony focused in, “Paul, I’ve been talking to your buddy Kyle Ruleman and […]
“In the beginning”, the Creation Hymn declares that the Earth was covered in darkness. When you think of “the Earth”, do you think of the Blue Marble photograph of earth floating in outer space? On December 7, 1972 Apollo 17 flew far enough away from earth to fit the whole planet in the camera’s viewfinder, […]
The Franklin County Ministerial Alliance did not meet during the summer, so my Senior Pastor sent me to represent our church at the August meeting. I was fresh out of seminary, in my first appointment, and my second month at the church. After the preachers finished their second, third or fourth trip to the breakfast […]
It was 2am and my buddies and I were playing cards at my parents’ house, our normal high school haunt. Someone decided to pour their Mountain Dew into a wine glass, wet their finger and run it around the rim of the glass manufacturing an annoying hum. We all tried the trick, emptying the china […]
I read in the New York Times how a Republican Representative has proposed adding Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore. The Times pointed out a few problems with this idea. 1) It might be better to wait a few decades to let history judge who we carve into granite. 2) Mount Rushmore is a completed work […]
This past week our Tennessee Western Kentucky Annual Conference met at Colliersville United Methodist Church. Our gathering was upbeat, prophetic and hopeful. Bishop David Graves remarked “The Spirit of God is moving in this place, God is doing a new thing with us. There is such a good spirit in this place, I believe if […]
pastorpaulpurdue 