On June 16, we held our annual “Question Box.” Those present were invited to submit questions and I answered as many as I could in the amount of time given. There were so many great questions left, so I’ll be answering them in today’s and upcoming columns. Question: How is...
On June 16, we held our annual “Question Box.” Those present were invited to submit questions and I answered as many as I could in the amount of time given. There were so many great questions left, so I’ll be answering them in today’s and upcoming columns. Question: Do devils...
Long before Reddit introduced “Ask Me Anything,” where people would answer questions about their careers, lives, etc, it was a tradition in Unitarian Universalism to have a “Question Box” worship service. I’ve heard it called by many titles, including “Stump the Minister,” but the format is roughly the same. During...
This week, I’m on a different kind of study leave. I have literally gone back to school, entering the Doctor of Ministry program at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. A Doctor of Ministry degree program is categorized as a professional degree, rather than an academic degree. It is a form of...
I am so excited. This Sunday, I will be joined on the chancel by Marci Marie Simmons. From her bio: Marci Marie is the Community Outreach Coordinator for Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance. As a social media influencer and content creator she has over 280k followers on Tiktok and is...
In our intentional village that is Live Oak, the one part of our lives we often don’t get the opportunity to share is that we share with our pet companions. This Sunday, we do exactly that with our Animal Blessing service. It will be in our church backyard, right off...
We’ve got two special worship services coming up and I wanted to bring them to your attention. (And also ask about a specific element you might be interested in.) First, this Sunday is our annual Choir Sunday. This year, the theme is “Harmonies of the East: Exploring Asian Folk Songs.”...
Last Sunday, I told the origin story of Renaissance Festivals in the United States. The first one, the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in California, came partially as a response to the Red Scare that blacklisted many people in the motion picture industry. Phyllis Patterson, a public school teacher, decided that her...
I grew up in the Houston area, close enough to the Texas Renaissance Festival that I had friends who worked there every fall. As a young pre-teen, I went with my big brother and his friends, feeling very cool in doing so. As I got older, there were different things...
Last November, preaching on the topic of “communal resilience,” I told the story of Roseto, Pennsylvania and what is now referred to among sociologists and medical doctors as “the Roseto Effect.” In the late 1880s, the town of Roseto Valfortore, Italy, was going through a period of poverty. Several young...