Playing for Change: Stand by Me

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saint Ruby Yenkala

I have noticed that there are people in this world that seem to change everyone around them. It seems like merely speaking with them, or shaking their hand, is enough to transform you. I believe that this is what Paul meant by a "fruit of the Spirit." Saint Ruby Yenkala was not always sunshine and roses, not always happiness. Sometimes, she was frustrating and infuriating, but she changed us, and I think, she changed us for the better, and she changed us for good. She was a white woman of Jesse Helm's generation who thought nothing of worshiping with, embracing, and helping people regardless of their color. She was a woman who should, by all rights, been sitting in the back of the church, keeping her mouth shut except to responsively pray or sing. And yet, ever since she walked in the door of Northminster, she was standing in church, telling us what was needed in the community, giving us the good news and the bad news. Ruby was Christ's eyes and ears and hands and fee...
Read more

My Preaching Schedule

 Here are the Sundays when I am preaching.  May 24 First Presbyterian of New Orleans May 31 June 7 June 14 June 21 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian June 28 Chinese Presbyterian July 5 July 12 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian (Emily)  July 19 First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans  July 26 Chinese Presbyterian (Emily)  August 2 [communion at FPCNO] (Emily)  August 9 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian  August 16 August 23  August 30 September 6 [communion at FPCNO] September 13 First Presbyterian New Orleans September 20 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian  September 27 Chinese Presbyterian Church (maybe)  October 4 [communion at FPCNO] October 11 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian  October 18 October 25 November 1 First Presbyterian New Orleans  November 8 November 15 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian  November 22 November 29 First Presbyterian Church New Orleans December 6 [communion at FPCNO] December 13 Metairie Ridge Presbyterian  December 20 [possib...
Read more

Halloween, the Christian Holiday

We talked about this week before last, but I wanted this on the blog too, especially for folks who weren't there. I think Halloween has the potential to be an incredibly effective, meaningful, and joyous Christian festival. Now, most of the times when you read a statement like that, the proponent is imagining re-styling Halloween into some kind of "Fall Festival", scrubbing it clean of all ghost stories or anything scary, and maybe using it as some kind of "morality tale:" a variation on the Christmas-time song "you better watch out." That's not what I'm advocating. I think that there is a great Christian witness in sitting in a dark room and telling ghost stories. I think there is something more than morality to be gotten from October 31. (Not that there isn't morality there: just look at any pre- Scream horror movie and watch who gets massacred first, and who makes it through.) Halloween, more than any other festival, is about story-tell...
Read more