The plight of refugees has become a defining issue of our times. I wish to explore the implications of this issue for our church

This is a day we set aside to look to the future. While we live within the constraints of mortality and finitude, we still have the ability to determine events if the will is there. The Seven Principles and Affirmation of Faith can guide us into the New Year. Come, let us reason together.

A few thoughts on holidays, cultural influence and the future of diversity.

The safety pin has become a symbol of the pledge to help people.  All of us have had a time when someone helped us keep things together. All of us have lent other people a safety pin.  I’d like to reflect on the ways in which a safety pin can be the best gift.

Our loyalties based on how we see the world. A book I read, Strangers in Their Own Land, by Arlie Hochschild explores what divides right and the left in America in terms of the “deep stories” that form world views. I’ll talk about what divides us and how we can talk to each other.

Thanksgiving is the time of year where we are told, again and again, that we should be thankful. This sermon explores some reasons why gratitude might be difficult to achieve and how the command to be thankful has been abused. It also discusses ways in which gratitude is both a healthy and helpful emotion.

With Halloween fast approaching, the subject of fear is on my mind. What are we afraid of? What fears are reasonable and healthy? What are distractions from real dangers? How do we cope with fear? How are we manipulated by our fears?

We are well noted as a denomination for our acts of social justice. However, we may have very different ideas about how social justice should be accomplished and what is the most effective way of working. This sermon explores some of these differences, their effects on the church and the groups we wish to help.

This is a sermon about some essentials missing from our lives.

On this 15th anniversary of 9/11, this sermon takes a look at the role of remembrance and the role of forgetting.  In particular this is a look at the concept of memory and how it’s altering depends on circumstances.  Does memory help us or hinder in healing our lives and coming to terms with tragedy?