Archive for the ‘Adult Education’ Category

A New Way of Sharing the Christmas Story

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 7, 2011

Here at PPC, the third Sunday in Advent is earmarked for the Children’s Christmas service – whether it’s a Christmas musical, a retelling of the Nativity, with angels, shepherds, and the wise men, or another story relating to Christmas. This year, we’ll be embarking on a new way of telling the story – through the Advent Jesse Tree. This is a tradition that we had in my church in Glenview, Ill., and I wanted to bring it to our children here in Arizona.

One of the purposes of the Old Testament is to prepare us for the Messiah – that even though God’s people would not always understand many of the events that happened to them, God’s purpose was to be revealed when Jesus came to earth. The Old Testament is filled with stories that provide history, promises, and prophecies, and they frame the reader for what is to come.
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Waiting, in Preparation

Posted on Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011

Waiting. It’s not something people today like to do.
Waiting for the turkey to be done…
Waiting for guests to arrive….
Waiting for the stores to open on Black Friday…
Waiting in traffic, in grocery store lines, for a doctor’s appointment. Short, temporary inconveniences.

But sometimes waiting is more difficult.
Waiting for healing, for grief to lessen, for a relationship to be reconciled.

We are a society used to instant access, constant contact, what we want when we want it.
We don’t like to be told to wait.

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Confronting Our Fears

Posted on Monday, Sep 5, 2011

I read an article on NPR online this week in which former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “Americans will only lose touch with the freedom-loving, open society we enjoy if we take such counsel of our fears that we change who we are.” Powell argues that 10 years after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 the thing that we must guard against most is fear. (more…)

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To Pray and to Sing the Anniversary

Posted on Monday, Sep 5, 2011

In my 2005 book, Where the Light Shines Through (Brazos Press), I begin the chapter, “9/12 Living in a 9/11 World,” with this memory:

In late September of 2001, not long after Sept. 11, the Washington Post ran an article by Hanna Rosen called, “God, You Around?” It was about the noticeable resurgence of both outward religious practice and private prayer in the wake of that September’s events. “It’s not just that the faithful are flocking to houses of worship,” she wrote, “it’s that people who have never been and still won’t go, who passed all those candlelight vigils . . . and kept on walking, are finding themselves, despite themselves, praying.” She quotes the head of a network of counselors working mostly with New York business folk: “‘Every other person we spoke to would get to a point where they’d say, ‘Doc, I’m not sleeping well and the only way I can get through this is to pray.’’ And she describes a graffiti artist who once “peppered the sidewalks with, ‘No more prisons,’” but had taken to writing, simply, “Pray.”

On this 10th anniversary of 9/11, we can remember the prayers. We can also remember a return to the more assertive claims, as though scratched on sidewalks again: No more terror! No more war! No more innocent deaths, no matter the side! No more fear! No more! No more!

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Overcoming Evil With Good

Posted on Saturday, Sep 3, 2011

I wasn’t alive when President Kennedy was assassinated. I don’t remember the Challenger tragedy (I was three). But I do remember the exact moment I heard about the Twin Towers being struck on Sept. 11, 2001. I was in my first year of undergrad at Northern Arizona University and remember sitting of the floor of my dorm room for hours trying to convince myself that this was some sort of mistake. Though thousands of miles away, it felt as if it was happening in Flagstaff. It was that gut-wrenching, that earthshaking.

In a way it was happening in Flagstaff. It was happening everywhere in our nation. Tears and confusion set in.

It was what happened next that changed me most though. It was the first time I, as a young adult, saw people really come together. People who never had been to church flocked through the doors and found community with complete strangers and solace from the words of pastors they never valued prior. Neighbors came together to support each other and communities were attentive caring for each other.

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Reflections on Sept. 11

Posted on Friday, Sep 2, 2011

For those of us old enough to remember – Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001, were somewhat similar but decidedly different.

It was more than just a 60-year difference. It was a difference in attitude and approach. In 1941, the nation banded together and fought a known aggressor. In ’01, we did not seem to band together except out of a fear of flying. Following 1941, we joined in every way possible to save all sorts of things that would be useful in the effort to push back Imperialism and Nazism. Following ’01, we joined together to see who might have something on their person that could be used to bring down an aircraft we might be flying on. Fear seemed to saturate our society rather than a firm resolve to find a rational solution to what was happening.
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Welcome to Echoes (of the Word)

Posted on Tuesday, Aug 30, 2011

Welcome to Echoes (of the Word), the new Pastors’ blog at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church.

We hear echoes of human words in canyons, a beloved feature our Arizona landscape. We also hear echoes of Christ’s spiritual word ringing through prayer, song, preaching, and passing of peace in our sanctuary. In fact, we often call our sanctuary at Pinnacle the “Canyon of Faith.” It’s designed to evoke a canyon, as if a stream of water comes down from the heights, then splits into tributaries — the stream of Living Water flowing toward the table around which we gather, with one of those tributaries flowing toward the pulpit and cross and the other toward the organ and choir. And there is another flow, too — also from beyond us. That one flows into our baptism area. This flow waters both the Tree of Life, which becomes the cross, and the pulpit, from which we hear the Word preached. Words prayed over babies and adults in baptism, words preached, words sung, words offered in the blessing of Communion — all words to echo the Holy Spirit calling to us.

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