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One afternoon over a decade ago, I was cleaning up after serving lunch at a soup kitchen for poor, elderly Russians in the middle of Moscow. I was wiping down the tables as a pair of women were getting ready to go, tying their scarves and packaging t…
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While attending Yale Divinity School years ago, I had the fun of playing on the intramural hockey team for Calhoun College, one of Yale’s undergraduate colleges. My teammates were kind enough to embrace me as a de facto “hounie,” even if our lives on…
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Earlier this spring, I attended the Festival of Homiletics in San Antonio, Texas. Homiletics is a fancy, $20-word way of saying preaching and sermon writing. This week-long event is meant to educate and uplift pastors across all denominations. Basica…
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Last weekend, along with a few other folks from St. Paul, I attended the Southeastern Iowa Synod Assembly at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines. As Lutheran Christians, we believe the church is much bigger than one congregation. This is what…
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In recent years, the idea of creating a personal “bucket list” has grown in popularity. The concept is rather simple—identify things you’d like to accomplish, see, or experience and attempt to check those items off your to-do list before you, say, “k…
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A few weeks ago, my then-4-year-old daughter and I were coloring at our dining room table. I noticed that our vase full of cheerful, yellow daffodils were much too quickly becoming droopy and brown. I commented how sad it was that they were so pretty…
Recently in confirmation, we had our annual “ask a pastor” night. This is an evening that puts our Biblical, spiritual, and pastoral knowledge to the test as the kids ask any burning question on their minds. I sat in a stool at the front of the class…
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One of the highlights of our seventh- and eighth-grade confirmation program is the final session of the school year – “Ask the Pastor.” Youth in the room wing every imaginable question the way of the pastor seated upfront on the stool. As one might e…
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Easter worship at St. Paul is a celebration that engages all the senses. At least two of those senses were stimulated last Sunday by the truckloads of flowers that filled our worship spaces. The church building was bursting with pinks, purples, yell…
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A few weeks ago, as Major League Baseball spring training was well underway, this picture was shared widely on social media: The photo was taken by a reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, at a Houston Astros minor league baseball game. What you can tell…
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I was stopped at a light on Locust Street here in Davenport last week. On the sidewalk next to me was a mom who had the combination of impatience mixed with amusement that comes with being a parent of a little one. She stood waiting for her preschool…
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I preached a sermon recently where I expressed dismay over our tendency to allow our political opinions to shape our Christian faith. We seem to attach ourselves to a politician or piece of legislation, and then go through all kinds of contortions to…