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 […]
Tag Archives: christianity
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 […]
We stood at the front of the church, mom’s photo resting on an easel next to the small cedar box our friend Ross had made to hold her cremains. The line of people stretched out the back of the sanctuary into the vestibule. As I surveyed the line, two women in white sweatshirts stood out. […]
Every year, early in January we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. We dip our fingers in baptismal font and pick up a shell, river stone, or a little blue glass bead as we pledge to remember our baptism. A church member shared with me how they had kept a blue bead in their […]
Perhaps prompted by our Lenten devotional guide, I spent this week wondering about what it means to be lost or found, so on Tuesday, I asked Emma and Matt about lostness? Emma shared how during her elementary school years, her family went to Italy. While walking with her family around the streets of Rome, Emma […]
Maybe five times in my life I’ve cooked for more than 20 people. But, during seminary, I decided to take our youth group to a Christian Rock music festival, where we camped and cooked in a barely improved farm field with 18,000 other young people and their dedicated adult leaders. After a day of music […]
Would you join me in some holy daydreaming this morning? Would you prayerfully imagine yourself as some of the characters in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan? In the summertime Jerusalem experiences temperatures from 84 to a low of 67. If it was winter the average high is 53 with a low of 44. […]
Remarks at Run Walk Nashville Pedestrian Memorial Service 2/22/25 Hello, I’m Paul Purdue. I’m the Pastor at Belmont United Methodist Church in Hillsborough Village. When Wesley asked me if I could speak at the memorial. I was happy to do so because on July 1 of this year my brother was involved in a bicycle […]
First Corinthians 13 may be my favorite passage in the whole Bible. By Monday I had the beginnings of three good sermons that stretched out 12 pages, one had a great funny opening story. None of them seemed adequate for our national moment that Bishop Tracy S. Malone, President – Council of Bishops of The […]
The Bible begins with a beautiful creation liturgy, followed by a creation story, a flood story and a tower story. Genesis 2-11 just reads differently than the rest of the Bible. Scholars say that the historical portion of the Bible begins in Genesis 12 where God calls Abraham and Sarah. Jesus spoke of “the God […]
pastorpaulpurdue 