It was 1979, I was 13, sitting on an uncomfortable pew at church camp. The preacher, who was not much older than us, pleaded “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. If your right eye causes you to […]
Tag Archives: god
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 […]
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. […]
Congratulations graduates, you have earned your degree. Take a breath. Praise a favorite teacher. Give thanks for parents, friends, and others who have traveled this road with you. Rehearse the happy moments. Celebrate your victories and obstacles you overcame. Share your wounds, disappointments and hurts: do not walk alone. Celebrate, linger in the moment, not […]
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 […]
Tonight, we begin our Lenten journey tonight with a sign of the cross smudged across our foreheads. The ashen smudge is a sign of our identification with Jesus- it reminds us of our baptismal promises to follow Jesus’ along Christ’s alternative kin-dom route. I do not see where Jesus asked us to put on sackcloth […]
We have two children. One majored in engineering. The other majored in theater, with a minor in Music, in Appalachian Studies and in Political Science. One lives in a tiny cabin at Cedar Crest Camp surrounded by 500 acres of woods. One lives in a Huntsville neighborhood with his wife, Jillian, a goldendoodle and two […]
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 […]
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 […]
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