The Art of Hospitality

A feast of food and hospitality at PEI’s Fireworks Feast sparked reflections on the church’s own welcome. From thoughtful accommodations to genuine presence, every detail made us feel welcome and included. What if our congregations mirrored that same joy, preparation, and love in receiving guests?

The Long Journey

As I said at the beginning of worship, the next few weeks are going to be focused on how small changes, changes that we don’t think even matter, can build up over time to make a big difference. James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, writes, “It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one…

Hospitality and Promise

Today I’m trying to tie a number of things together, in a few short minutes… covenant, or promise, hospitality, and Treaty Day. Yesterday, I heard a story about a woman who was concerned for her husband during the hurricane. They had lost power and he was dependent on a CPAP machine. She said she prayed…

United Church of Christ – Maine Conference

It is SUCH a privilege to visit ecumenical partners and especially our sister denomination, the United Church of Christ. The people of Maine extended such deep hospitality to me, from registration, where Anne Hodgman immediately recognized my name when I gave it to her and came out from around the table to give me a…

You Are Loved and You Matter

On my way in to the church on Thursday I listened to an interview with Mitch Albom, the man who wrote Tuesdays with Morrie. It’s the 20th anniversary of the book. For those of you who might not be familiar with it, Tuesdays with Morrie is the final lesson between a college professor, Morrie, and one…

Welcome Home!

You don’t hear of me in that story that was just read did you? I am Lydia, the mother of those two boys. Those two very different boys… Nathaniel the eldest and Zachary, the child of our old age… And of course, I am a wife, Simon’s wife… I want to tell you a little bit more of…

Hospitality AND Discipleship

  I have come to believe that one of the most important words in life, including the life of the church is AND. For me it means that instead of separating things into distinct components, thereby reducing them, ‘and’ implies expanding, including and hospitality. For instance, we might disagree on some things regarding our image of God…

What Words Do You Live By?

Good Morning Everyone! What a fine gathering. My name is Rebekka. I was there that day… that day when Jesus freaked out and turned over the tables in the temple. I was there when he walked into the temple, looked around and shook his head… I was there to see the sadness in his eyes when he saw how…

Love Your Visitors!

I am out of town on Study Leave, in fact, on the other side of the country, and so took advantage of the opportunity to worship instead of lead worship last Sunday. I chose the church partly because of what I discovered on their website, which indicated an active, outward looking congregation. The music was…