by Laura Stephens-Reed There’s still time to register for The Young Clergy Women Project 2010 conference, held in Atlanta in June. I won't miss it, and here's why. In the spring of 2007, I was questioning where, how, and even whether God would use me in ministry again. The five years since my ordination had [...]
Discernment
by Katherine Willis Pershey Editor’s Note: What would it be like if we were able to view tasks as creative opportunities? From writing new lyrics set to familiar hymntunes to the visuals we choose for a worship bulletin’s cover, liturgy in and of itself can be a chance to be imaginative. Even more interesting, sometimes [...]
5 Hair Products and Toothpaste
by The Rev. Meg Buerkel Hunn Five hair products plus toothpaste!!! Those were the words from a mow-hawked boy of eight who greeted me four days before the wedding. When he arrived with his dad (my fiancé) and his brother, his blond hair was nicely arranged in a ridge, just like a stegosaur’s plates, along [...]
Blowing Kisses
by Ruth Sorenson-Prokosch She stuck with him for about two minutes. Like all children, my daughter Ilse has a tendency to be unpredictable during the children’s sermon. As my colleague was talking about the promises God makes to us in baptism, Ilse’s eyes wandered up to the balcony and when she spotted that special someone [...]
Dearly Beloved
by Katie Yahns I have been ordained for nearly four years. It seems like much longer than that—so much has changed since that warm April day and that nearly-two-hour service. If I think back to the worship service itself, my memories focus on a few things: the passing of the peace (where I finally felt [...]
Heaviness and Light
by Kate Giguere I'm not sure how to explain how I've been feeling recently except to say that it's been "heavy." My soul has been weighed down. I've been moving more slowly than I usually do, and I've been tired. And while I'm sure that I have felt this way in the past, in the [...]
Let’s Talk about Sex
by Sarah Kinney Gaventa Every time a book comes out about Christianity and sexuality, I read it. (Well, I have not yet gotten to Rob Bell’s Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality, but it is on my list.) The Church, in all of its multidenominational glory, seems always to be struggling [...]
Wo/andering in the Desert…
by Sarah Klaassen (This article was originally published as a blog post at Sarah's blog: Sarah's Seattle Summer on February 23, 2010) I spent twenty years of my life intimately tuned to the liturgy of the academic calendar – the rhythm and rest of lengthy breaks interspersed between semesters that flowed from introductions and syllabus [...]