December 4, 2005 — 3:45 PM
Recently a pastor friend of mine introduced me to the loving, small community of worshippers at High Street Presbyterian Church in Oakland, CA. He made the introduction because he was in the process of leaving that church for a full-time call elsewhere and he thought that the congregation and I would be good for each other.
Now the Presbyterian process of finding a pastor is never that simple. But it did establish a nice connection from which the congregation, the presbytery, and I can explore if I would be a good candidate to be their next part-time pastor. These kinds of things can take many months, but my friend knew that this church probably cannot survive that kind of lapse in leadership. So he made the introduction in hopes that the process could be quickened a bit.
While the church is figuring out who will be their next pastor, they have asked me to be a guest preacher for several Sundays during the month of December - a request that I gladly accepted. I love to preach and lead worship so this is a great pleasure for me.
Today was the first of these Sundays and I preached a sermon about the Season of Advent to help them in their preparations for celebrating Christmas (another Sunday when I will be worshipping with the congregation!).
What a blessing to have the opportunity to preach to the same community several times in the same month. Now I will really see if I can do this preaching thing on a regular basis. Up 'til now it's been much more spread out.
Come on out and join us (1945 High Street in Oakland) - the community and I would love to have you with us as we celebrate the season.
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December 10, 2005 — 3:48 PM
Have you heard? Christmas is under attack from secularists and non-religious people. That's what evangelical Christians would have us believe anyway.
Well now it seems to be under attack from its own membership. The New York Times reports that several megachurches (who tend to fall into the evangelical category of thinking and preaching) will not be holding Christmas Day services even though it falls on a Sunday. Many churches traditionally do not have Christmas Day services, so that is not really the big surprise in the story. The real interesting part is the fact that Christmas falls on a Sunday - a day when all Christian churches hold their regular weekly services!
These churches aren't steeped in tradition and ritual; rather, they sell themselves as places of innovation in worship. So I shouldn't really be surprised. And yet, I am. Is it too much to offer one (maybe even scaled way down) service? Churches should teach by example.
If you're looking for a place to worship on Christmas morning, I know of a lovely little church that would gladly welcome you - High Street Presbyterian Church in Oakland. I will be preaching and the congregation will be celebrating God's presence in creation made real in the birth of Jesus over 2000 years ago.
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December 18, 2005 — 3:01 PM
Someone forgot to tell the weather that the winter solstice isn't for a couple more days. We are in the middle of a full-on winter storm here in San Francisco. It came complete with very high winds (great for scaring people as they drive over the many bridges in the area), heavy rains, and even some thunder and lightning to boot.
This morning I was preaching about listening to God speaking when lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and the heavens opened up and let all the water come down at once. We all thought that God has a good sense of humor (not to mention timing) when that happened.
So welcome to winter - even if it is a few days early. I know most of the country has been dealing with winter-like weather for quite some time now. But we here in San Francisco are late adopters to that kind of thinking. We've been dragged into it this weekend, whether we wanted to go there or not.
Now all there is to do is to sit back and enjoy - or get out there in the middle of it to enjoy.
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December 27, 2005 — 11:33 AM
Got your running goals set for the new year? I'm not quite there yet. I'm limited in my planning efforts because I'm hoping to find full-time employment as a pastor soon and I'm not sure what that will do to my time for training. Until that happens, I'll keep running as much as possible.
So to get things off to a good start, I'm planning on running the Rock-n-Roll Arizona half marathon in mid-January. It is right before my 37th birthday. What a great way to celebrate.
Then in March there are three great races three weekends in a row put on by EnviroSports - one down the peninsula in Woodside, one up in Marin at China Basin, and one on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. I will have a hard time deciding which of those to run. I'll probably do two, but not all three, of them.
Other races that interest me farther in the future include the Bay to Breakers in May, the Runner's World Marathon at the end of July, the Bridge to Bridge in early October, and many more. I am never at a loss for options if I want to enter a race. There are also tons of smaller races to compliment these.
I hope you have a great new year filled with lots of fun activities (maybe even running races). I know I plan to.
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December 28, 2005 — 11:43 AM
Sunday, Christmas day, was my third chance to preach and lead worship with the congregation of High Street Presbyterian Church. What a great group of people. It was lovely to spend my Christmas morning worshipping God with them. I have definitely enjoyed creating sermons for their worship and life together. Here's the latest.
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