notes on first peter four

When we gather on Thursday evening we will read the fourth chapter of the First Letter of Peter. Come with your questions and insights. Here are some questions to consider as you read …

fifteen hundred sundays

I have been preaching most every Sunday for thirty-five years. It means something like fifteen hundred Sundays by now ... and fifteen hundred sermons. Counting the sermons in Holy Week that are coming up I think there are fifteen sermons to be preached before I step out of the weekly rhythm that I have been in for three and a half decades. I find myself thinking back to my first weeks and months as a preacher when this all seemed so strange and new and difficult. Now it feels so familiar and habitual and ... difficult!

notes on first peter three

When we gather on Thursday evening we will read the third chapter of the First Letter of Peter. Come with your questions and insights. Here are some questions to consider as you read …

pomalidomide (cycle two)

First off - for those who can catch it later today the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation is live streaming the concert "Cancer Blows" from Dallas, Texas. Here is the link. Ryan Anthony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra principal trumpet and former member of the Canadian Brass, was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma last year. This concert brings together many trumpet players in raising awareness about the disease as well as fund-raising for research into treatments for multiple myeloma.

On more mundane matters, I am coming to the conclusion of my second twenty-eight day cycle on pomalidomide and dexamathasone. Cycle three begins this coming Monday ...

on being a catholic church

On a recent Sunday in worship I could not help but notice how very catholic our singing has become. A gathering song by Fanny Crosby, blind author of over eight thousand gospel hymns and songs was followed by an opening hymn of praise from Ambrose of Milan, the fourth century doctor of the church who introduced hymnody to the western church. The Singers (our choir) offered the contemporary hymn “In the Quiet Curve of Evening” as a haunting and inviting choral introit. There was a sung Kyrie from the intentional Christian community at Iona and the “Asithi Amen” from Africa. The chorus of the traditional French carol “Angels We Have Heard on High” provided the Gloria. A hymn by Joachim Neander rooted us in the Protestant Reformation while a setting of Psalm 91 by Michael Joncas connected us with twentieth century liturgical renewal in the Roman Catholic church sparked by Vatican II. Our children led us in singing the Lord’s Prayer with embodied actions. The text for the day from Isaiah 40:31 brought to mind a popular chorus – “Those who wait upon the Lord” – and when it was sung we told the story of its author, Stuart Hamblen, the once famous singing cowboy, among the first of Billy Graham’s converts, whose transformed life surprised and confounded many in his time.