Archive

As October 1 approaches, I am looking at how things will change when my schedule has fewer hours attached to my work at Aldersgate because I’m moving from working half-time at the church to working quarter-time. As I’ve said before, I will still be the Associate Pastor and you are still welcome to contact me […]

We return this coming week to a structure for worship that will be more recognizable. The conversations last Sunday for our Table Talks worship were inspired and true. Thank you for listening to each other, for sharing deeply about your experience and your love of God, church, family, and strangers. It won’t be the last […]

This Sunday in worship, the message will be delivered in a style that looks unusual to us. It will be a time to hear God speaking in the truth of the stories we tell each other about our own families and our own experiences. The message will be followed immediately by the opportunity to gather […]

This week we celebrate the holiday weekend with outdoor worship in the open air and a potluck lunch afterwards. We will combine services and enjoy the company of the entire Aldersgate community together. Our worship will include elements of the order of worship from each service, as well as a few things that we’ve learned […]

Walking into a conversation about death and dying means that we come to terms with the fact that our faith life is connected to our physical life. Our spiritual journey develops over the course of a lifetime lived in a body on Earth. Our hopes and dreams for our passing from this life into the […]

This past spring, our stewardship campaign held some surprises for us. We had some new pledging units and a sense of hopefulness about how resources would meet the need in our mission field. However, the total overall amount pledged still turned out to be less than the projected expenses. Therefore, the Core Leadership Team (CLT) […]

As a chemistry teacher, I frequently hear a question from my students in the lab that goes like this, “if I (eat, mix, try, burn, or drop) this, will I die? My response is usually, “you are going to die anyway, but that might hasten the process.” Life and death are topics that we are […]

I’ve been thinking about leadership lately. There are at least two ways of thinking about leadership. One way is to think that most of us are followers and there are a few leaders among us who are accomplished in some way. They can show the rest of us where to go and what to do. […]

This Thanksgiving, we are so thankful, for our lives, for health and healing, for abundance in our experience in so many ways. We praise God for the families-biological and other- that surround us, physically, emotionally, or spiritually this year at the start of a season of holidays. We give thanks for the food we consume, […]

I’ve been reflecting on the Common Table event last week and the remarks that were shared during the State of the Church part of the agenda by Brad, Melinda, Jen, Dorothy, and Robbin. I was struck by the way that each of the speakers was able to weave together the good news of ministry well […]