Last week I brought up the ways in which this parish has shared with me your care for one another, and how that serves as a witness to Christ’s transformational love. It continues to be a source of inspiration for me, as the one who is here among you for a while, to bear witness to this care. Some of you may have been present when I shared about how my husband and I found our way to the Episcopal Church, but what I didn’t share then was that more than the liturgy (gorgeous),

Dear Friends, Every Wednesday, Fr. CJ and I meet with the Parish Care Team Co-Coordinators to pray and check in about various needs that are running through the community: people facing surgery, those recovering, current loss, graduations, and other celebrations, things like that. I’ve been a priest now for 12 years, and one of the greatest assets in a faith community is a strong lay pastoral care team. Together, as clergy and laity, we are able to, as our mission proclaims,

Dear Friends, As I have been getting to know the people and mission of this place, a theme is emerging that I want to reflect upon today. It’s two big words found in our mission statement: “transformational” and “love.” In seminary, one of my biblical teaching and hermeneutics professors, a brilliant mind and strong leader, said something like, “Unless it’s in the text, don’t preach about it.” She took umbrage at the overusage of powerful words in our attempts to be relevant,

Dear friends, In the Episcopal Church, our authority is seen to come from three sources: The Bible (Holy Scripture of Hebrew, Greek, and Apocryphal texts), the Tradition (Book of Common Prayer and Constitution and Canons of the church), and reason (our personal experience that we bring to the table). These are seen to work together, as Anglican Divine Richard Hooker said, like a three-legged stool. No one outweighs the other, but all work together to shape our common life. Ou