Pastor Brian's Blog

"Fresh Air" Series Overview It’s great to get a breath of fresh air outside. Besides providing many benefits to us, the natural world is also infused with God’s life-giving power. The Spirit is a deep impulse breathing life into creation, suffering with creation, and renewing all creation. During this creation series for September, we will turn our attention to the ecology and spirituality of forests, land, wilderness, and rivers. September 6 FOREST : Trees provide numerous benefits to us. In Genesis 2:4b-9 , God provides humankind a forest home in the Garden of Eden. What is your favorite tree or forest? September 13 LAND : We make our home on land that supports and sustains us. In Genesis 4:1-16 , the children of Adam and Eve make their living from the land, and when the field becomes a setting for brotherly betrayal, the ground cries to God for Abel’s death. What are some drawbacks of modern agriculture? September 20 WILDERNESS : As Mardy Murie claimed: “Wildernes...

This fall Trinity Church will serve as a teaching site for a new student intern from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His name is Ezechiel Habwawihe. Ezechiel’s pastoral field education experience with Trinity will begin the second week of September. The internship will conclude in May 2021. A native of Burundi (Africa), Ezechiel earned a bachelor’s degree in Health Services Management and a Master of Public Policy and Governance from Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. He grew up in a Christian home and was inspired by his father’s dedication to the things of God. Ezechiel’s dad was a pastor who worked day and night preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God and reaching out to the needy. In the process, his dad’s passion gradually became a part of him. For Ezechiel, the only beautiful thing is to be a part of what God is doing on earth. He is passionate about church ministry and working for justice. He enjoys preaching, singing, and searching the scr...

“God Is at Hand” Series Overview God is not out there somewhere on ethereal clouds looking down on us.   Rather, God is right here with us in our daily life.   Our series “God Is at Hand” will explore the how we can experience God’s presence and purpose through some of the things we hold in our hands, like a yoga mat, an eraser, a smartphone, a saltshaker, and a cup of tea.   August 2 YOGA MAT: Yoga is a physical practice punctuated by breath and silence.   God seems to thrive on silence when we often do not.   In 1 Kings 19:1-13 , the prophet Elijah hears God in the still, small voice of silence.   How do we make our silence work for us?   What do we really know about where God is in our daily lives?   August 9 ERASER: Everyone makes mistakes, but God wipes the slate clean with forgiveness.   In Psalm 103:1-14 , the psalmist says that God’s faithful love makes forgiveness absolute.   When did you last forgive someone?...

Planted Series Overview During this peak time for agricultural growth, our series for July called “Planted” will help us to cultivate the seeds of faith.   For three weeks, we will explore the parables of Jesus in Matthew 13.   Each lesson explores a different facet of our Christian life, including the potential, the challenges, and the rewards.   The sage of Proverbs 20:4 tells us: “The lazy person does not plow in season.   Harvest comes, and there is nothing to be found” (NRSV).  As we grow in faith, God provides a bounty. July 12 PARABLE OF THE SOWER: People face different circumstances in their lives, which may make them more or less receptive to God’s grace.   In Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 , Jesus tells a parable about a farmer broadcasting the seeds for his crop.     July 19 PARABLE OF THE WEEDS:   The need for order and unity is strong within us.   When disunity and disorder creep in, we may overreact - lashing out destr...

@Home Series Overview We have all been spending more time at home and finding in it a mixture of refuge and confinement.   Home is where the heart is, as well as the place where we experience the limits of our humanness.   With Thomas Dumm’s Home in America (2019), we will tour five legendary American homes from Thomas Jefferson’s plantation house and Henry David Thoreau’s rustic cabin to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s little house, Emily Dickinson’s brick homestead, and Herman Wallace’s dream house.   Our exploration of these residential archetypes will help us consider how we imagine and inhabit life at home, especially in light of our faith.   June 7 MONTICELLO: Thomas Jefferson’s plantation home is an early American architectural masterpiece whose master was both a prophet of freedom and a practitioner of slavery.   In Psalm 84 , the poet declares the Jerusalem Temple’s beauty, a house of worship that Solomon built with slave labor.   Eve...