I just finished teaching a course about discipleship. I wanted to give the grad students simple practical experiences that would help them connect with people without preaching at people. So I gave them “tiny projects”: six small things to do, one per week. Each week, they completed the tiny project and then shared with the […]

I have conversations with people at difficult times. I offer comfort. I offer words of encouragement. I offer prayer. And then I remind people to eat. It sounds like an odd thing for a chaplain to suggest. But it’s not. As I often say at the end of funerals, “God built us to need food […]

I was reading the end of Matthew. The actions of disciples are mentioned several times. The disciples forgot to take bread. The disciples came to Jesus on the side and said, “Why couldn’t we do that?” The disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The disciples rebuked […]

I was reading Matthew for a class. Just reading through the book in a printout that has no chapters, no verse numbers, just the text. That morning I had started with the disciples running away after Jesus was arrested. In a couple of paragraphs I read this sentence about Pilate: “For he knew that because […]

“How are you doing? How’s Nancy?” That’s what we’re hearing these days. With three family deaths in a month – a sister-in-law, and an uncle, and a dad (for Nancy) – there has been much loss, and much grief (which is, simply, our response to loss.) And the response often is, “Okay” or “As well […]