Given the chance, I jump at the opportunity to tell people why I love the Presbyterian Church. I can go on and on about polity, theology, critical Bible study and so much more. During a recent family gathering, I found myself explaining some of the major theological differences between Protestants and Catholics. For as much as I love the way our process works with shared leadership in our committees, time for everyone to share their voice and formal votes to agree upon things, it sometimes holds us back from really doing the work of Jesus in the world. We can (dare I say it?) be so decent and in order we forget what following Jesus is all about. In 2019 my hope for the church is that we would learn to love more fully without getting caught up in our own process. While it rightfully takes years of process to change our constitution, it should not take us a series of meetings to respond to people in crisis. Yet even loving people seems to have been hijacked by politics in our … [Read more...]

Training for marathons has taught me at least one thing: Small, habituated decisions can lead to significant and even surprising results. I am ambivalent about beginning the year with yet another resolution or collection of resolutions, but my ambivalence does not change the fact that making intentional decisions aimed at an achievable goal can be a really worthy endeavor. I have wondered long and hard about how to engage constructively with the history of race in the United States. Race is a vast and subtle embodied experience that touches every dimension of our life. As I have explored and probed my own family’s history with race, particularly as it pertains to western South Carolina, I have come to realize that healing this centuries-long history will likely take more than a generation or two. In addition to time, it will likely require open, honest and specific intentionality. I am grateful to be serving as a pastor in a denomination that seeks to promote education on … [Read more...]