I don’t know how or why I became fascinated with the lyrics of the old blues classic Nobody’s Fault But Mine. This was first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1927, and it seems to be his reflection on his spiritual journey. Johnson was born in 1897, and there’s not much known about his upbringing […]

Last Sunday, Pastor Connie introduced us to our new sermon series, which we’re entitling “TALL TREES, DEEP ROOTS.” She talked about our magnificent California Coastal Redwood and Giant Sequoia trees, which are the tallest and largest living things in the world. Recently, we’ve been asking you to identify your favorite Bible verses, those you repeatedly […]

We’ve been asking people to share favorite Bible verses that have helped carry them through these difficult months of adjustment to the pandemic threat we’re dealing with, and we’ll begin using some of these in our new sermon series. They’ve come from all over the Bible: the Old Testament Books of Moses, the Psalms, the […]

Does that phrase roll off your tongue without much thought? Yeah, she likes to hear it, and it settles a lot of potential arguments. Or, how about the way you start a letter — even to someone you hardly know — with the word Dear? Like, “Dear IRS. . .” I’d like to remind you […]

The Great Awakening is a name given to a distinctly American religious movement. Actually, three different spiritual outbreaks are given this title. The First Great Awakening (1730-55) was a time of religious revival in the Colonies before the Revolutionary War, associated with names like Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and George Whitefield. The Second Great Awakening […]

We’ve come to the last of the nine New Testament books written during the Pressure Cooker days of extreme persecution endured by the struggling congregations of Christian believers during the last decades of the first Christian century. It’s the Book commonly referred to as “Revelations,” but which is more properly called “The Revelation of St. […]

A person may deal with a minor setback in their dating life by shedding a few tears and going off their diet with a dish of ice cream, but the breakup of a marriage is a deeper hurt that needs much deeper healing. If at my annual checkup the doctor uses the words high cholesterol, […]

As I was reading through Third John, the brief New Testament Book that will be the focus of this week’s Pressure Cooker sermon series, I was surprised to find a very familiar phrase from one of our most reassuring hymns: Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be […]

This is the profound question the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate put to Jesus as the two stood face to face (depicted above in the classic 1890 painting by Ukrainian artist Nikolai Ge). Here’s the conversation that led up to that moment: Pilate summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, […]

I was studying for Sunday’s sermon on the next New Testament book in our Pressure Cooker series, First John, and I came across this provocative passage: Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the […]