Who is more authentic in speaking truth and proclaiming the Gospel today: the Church or Lady Gaga?

As we suffer through the “traditional dysfunctional family values” culture war that is now part of the Republican primary debates, and as the Presbyterian Church sticks its head in the sand trying to find yet another way to keep gay and lesbian persons at the margins, if not excluded, and as state after state wrestles with equal marriage rights, it is not getting better for everyone. Child after child, kid after kid keeps getting bullied and beaten up at school for being different. How many more glbt kids have to commit suicide before our country shouts in unison: “Enough!”

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Have you ever wondered how salt loses its saltiness?

Salt is a mineral and so isn’t it impossible for salt to cease being salt? Evidently, if salt attaches itself to other minerals, its own characteristics can be hidden or even covered by the other minerals.

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I’m addicted to GPS. I can’t imagine driving in Los Angeles without it! I have a “TomTom” with live traffic interface! That wonderful technological gadget guides me gracefully through each traffic jam in Los Angeles. It also gets me to where I need to be. As some of you know, I consider myself “directionally challenged.” My mantra in life, pre-GPS was, “If I didn’t cross a state-line or a major body of water, I wasn’t lost, I was just exploring new places.” Believe me, pre-GPS, I saw more places than I ever dreamed possible.

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As a child I learned the rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me!”

Today those words seem so naïve! Kids have always been hard on each other, but today’s name-calling and bullying is totally out of control. The number of kids who commit suicide because of bullying and name-calling is frightening and unbelievable. In spite of all the “shocking” stories of kids who are driven beyond despair by bullying, some tormented to the point of taking their own lives, it just keeps happening.

What’s in a Name? Today we know there is A LOT!

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This Sunday we celebrate God’s Covenant of Love in The Baptism of Elle Lyric Marvan & our Blessing of Kobie as she concludes her ministry with us.

You can know a person by the company they keep!
I’m sure most of you know the saying that a person is known by the company they keep, meaning we become like the people we hang out with. So if we hang out with respectable folk we become more respectable ourselves and if we hang out with some unsavory characters we adopt their bad habits.

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Christmas Eve Candle Light Service – 8 pm
Festive Music and Traditional Carols
Christmas Meditation:
“Who will Carry Jesus now?”
Rev. Dan Smith, Pastor

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How many times in life do we think we’ve got it together and then, kaboom! – something happens that was not part of “the plan?”

Last Sunday evening one of our members went out to a party, parked his car, shared in the merriment, came out to get in his car and the car was not there. It was stolen. That was not in his Christmas plan!

Two days ago I received an email from a member of our ministry team. A friend of our congregation who was going to participate in our Christmas Eve service had just received the news that she has cancer and has to have surgery immediately. That was certainly not in her plan. That wasn’t even in the scope of things possible!

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There is something strange that happens almost every time someone tries to tell me about a “religious experience” they’ve had. They always begin with “You probably think I’m crazy, but…” or “I’m sure you won’t believe this, but…”

Such “beginnings” used to annoy me. Of all the people in the world you ought to be able to talk to about a religious experience, your pastor should be one of them! But then I discovered it isn’t just with pastors that people don’t feel comfortable talking about “God-experiences,” it’s with everyone! We’re all afraid everyone will think we’re crazy! That says more about how we view “religion” in America than it does about you personally. Kind of strange, isn’t it, that America is “branded” as the land of religious Christians, yet few people in our culture feel comfortable talking even with their best friends about their personal experiences with God.

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“Why it is so Hard to Make the Crooked Straight
(so to speak)?”

I was still in high school, about 29 years ago, when I first felt the call to ministry. It all sounds well, except for one roadblock: women were not allowed to be pastors and preach. Wide-eyed and naïve, I thought that when God calls one to ministry God will open the necessary doors to realize this divine calling. Straighten the path; prepare the way, so to speak.

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Giving is a miracle that can transform the heaviest of hearts.

Two people, who moments before lived in separate worlds of private concerns, suddenly meet each other over a simple act of sharing. The world expands, a moment of goodness is created, and something new comes into being where before there was nothing. . . .

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