2026.05.10 | Creativity
Creativity is not only painting or music or art, though it certainly flourishes there. Creativity is the courage to imagine that things can be different.
Every movement for justice began because someone imagined a better world first.
Someone imagined freedom.
Someone imagined dignity for an oppressed people.
Someone imagined a church rooted in love and justice and belonging.
That is holy creativity. And of course it's best accompanied with the creativity of art and song, which fuels movements.
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Pertenecemos a un Dios creador que hizo surgir la vida del caos primordial y, dado que hemos sido creados a imagen de Dios, ese poder creativo reside también en nosotros. La creatividad es el coraje de imaginar que el mundo puede ser diferente. Hay que ser atrevido a soñar más allá de los límites del presente para hacer realidad un mundo más justo.
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2026.05.03 | COLLABORATION
Earlier this year, the editors of The Nation magazine nominated the entire city of Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize. The editors acknowledged that, “while individuals and organizations have been granted this prize since its inception in 1901, no municipality has ever been recognized. But,” they insisted, “in these unprecedented times, we strongly believe that the case can be made that Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota, has met and exceeded the [Nobel] committee’s standard of promoting ‘democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world.’” (1)
Here, in part, is the editors’ nomination statement to the Nobel committee:
The people of Minneapolis have suffered countless abuses, including harassment, detention, deportation, and injury. And, in incidents that shocked the world, federal agents have killed multiple residents, including poet and mother of three Renee Nicole Good and intensive care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti.
In response to these horrific developments, elected officials, clergy, and labor leaders in Minneapolis and Minnesota have called for nonviolent protest [...]. The people of Minneapolis and neighboring communities have answered that call with peaceful mass demonstrations that have drawn tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in frigid weather. They have coupled their cry for federal agents to withdraw from Minneapolis with chants that declare, “No hate, no fear… immigrants are welcome here!”
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2026.04.26 | Compassion
The word compassion means a “deep awareness of the suffering of another accompanied by the wish to relieve it.” Compassion is at the center of Jesus’ teachings. It is at the core of what it means to be a Christian and therefore a disciple of Christ. We see the suffering of people in the world and in our communities and we feel this tug inside our spirits, this call to respond, to play some part in repairing the situation and easing their pain. Yet in a world full of suffering, where do we begin? The problems can seem immense and complicated, while we ourselves feel so small. How can we even HOPE to make a difference? How can WE change anything?
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2026.04.19 | Jesus the Changemaker
En la iglesia no sólo estamos llamados a resistir aquello que está mal; estamos llamados a tener claridad sobre lo que estamos construyendo. Así que hoy, volvemos a Jesús, el agente de cambio. En el capítulo 4 de Juan, Jesús se encuentra con una mujer samaritana junto a un pozo, cruzando profundas brechas sociales, étnicas y religiosas arraigadas en siglos de conflicto. En lugar de evitarla, interactúa con ella, la escucha y le devuelve su dignidad. Al hacerlo, Jesús nos muestra que el cambio real no comienza con la caridad, sino con la relación. Él cambia el paradigma: de la exclusión al sentido de pertenencia, del ritual a la transformación.
Organizing teaches us something deeply aligned with the Gospel: That transformation doesn’t happen for people. It happens with people, and among people. As I wrote in a recent article on community organizing, organizing is not charity; it is solidarity. It is not about speaking on behalf of others, being a voice for the voiceless. Rather, it is about co-creating the conditions for people to speak and lead for themselves.
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2026.04.12 | Open Doors
And there’s one more important element that was added. Have you noticed it yet? Can you see the open door inside the “n”? This open door image adds yet another layer to our beloved logo, and gives us something to ponder: Are we standing on the outside of the door, being welcomed in? Are we standing inside the door, opening it to welcome in the stranger? Or are we opening the door to the world, preparing to get up and go out there, carrying our resurrection hope into the world? I think it gets to be all three at once.
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2026.03.15 | Protection and Care for the Vulnerable
So Jesus is once again flipping the script, inverting the hierarchy and power structures of the day. By saying that the kin-dom belongs to those with the humility of children, Jesus is once again asserting that the last shall be first and the least shall be greatest in God’s realm.
But the disciples still do not understand what he is trying to teach them. Their perspective still mirrors the ethos of their day. In fact, just a few chapters earlier, a couple of them asked Jesus if he would grant them the honor of sitting at his right hand and left hand in his future kin-dom. Imagine how confusing and heartbreaking it must have been for them to hear Jesus say that such lowly and humble children would be considered greatest in the kin-dom.
This passage is a powerful metaphor about the love that God has for all those that who lack means, status, agency or power. Jesus loves the little children, and all of those who are most vulnerable. Widows, orphans, foreigners/immigrants, and the poor are groups that the Bible tells us deserve special care and protection. In fact, scripture consistently emphasizes God's compassion and justice towards these vulnerable populations. We see God’s care and concern for them lifted up throughout the Bible.
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2022.05.01 | Changemakers
Today’s scripture is interesting and important for various reasons.
Historically speaking, this story has always been significant in the Christian tradition, because it describes how the leading Christian apostle went from being an enemy of the gospel to being its champion.
The story is also significant because many Christians have found Paul’s conversion story similar to their own, in that their lives were headed full-speed in one direction until they were abruptly changed by a hardship or surprise that caused them to examine or reexamine their relationship with Christ. Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians often identify with this narrative of conversion.
The conversion of Paul is also interesting and important, because it tells the story of two apostles’ conversions: Paul and Ananias.
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2020.05.31 | Fanning the Flames
The story of Pentecost is just a little too “woo-woo” for most Progressive Protestants to take seriously—at least at first blush. Think about it: a voice from heaven, tongues of fire, and foreigners saying and hearing things that may never have been said or heard before, and everyone comprehending—well, everyone, that is, except for educated, modern people like us. Right?
Most of us are left wondering what is the answer to Luke’s question: "What does this mean?"
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2020.05.24 | Paradise is Not Lost
On the news, this pandemic has been referred to as apocalyptic. I think this term is actually fitting- not in a zombie apocalypses kind of way but in the original meaning of the term. In the Greek, an apocalypsis, is an uncovering of something hidden. That’s what’s going on all around us.
This virus is laying bare the inequities in our communities. Making overt what was once covert. . .
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2020.05.10 | Spiritual Adulting
Today, we celebrate the Festival of the Christian Home in the United Church of Christ, and we celebrate Mother’s Day in our churches and in our homes, all across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, the Philippines and South Africa.
This is an occasion when people pause to reflect on the importance of nurture and those who nurture us in our families of origins and our childhood homes and current homes. Increasingly, as an occasion to recognize, honor, and express appreciation to those in our families of origin (or our families of choice) as “Other Mothers” and “Community Mothers.
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2020.05.03 | Define Church
What is worship? Is it that ritual that we participate in on Sunday mornings in the main Sanctuary? Is it a Google Watch Party that we tune into at 10 a.m. on Sundays?
Does shared space and time matter anymore, given that Sunday worship is posted on the Church webpage, and you can hit play at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. or any other time or day of the week?
Today, the COVID crisis challenges us to reflect deeply on what it means to be the Church as a people--a people scattered.
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2020.04.26 | Stay with Us
What the risen Christ has shown us this Easter season is two-fold: 1) while we are in dire need of a better wealth distribution, all people and corporations are capable of so much more benevolence than we have ever imagined and 2) we may, with the help of technology, be capable of working and living and caring for the most vulnerable in ways that are more protective of our natural environment, steward our limited resources, and result in a more equitable situation for all of God’s creation.
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