Rector's Blog | The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

This blog is also available as a podcast.

Rector's Blog: When God Is Toxic

This blog is also available as a podcast I want to start today with a hypothetical scenario: Imagine you have a friend that has gotten into a relationship with a man and things are starting to get serious. You ask them what he’s like, an...

Rector's Blog: The Words We Cannot Say

This blog is also available as a podcast When Moses asked what to call God, God gave him the run around. “I am that I am,” was God’s response. Except it may not have been. The same phrase could be translated, “I will ...

Rector's Blog: Living Worship

This blog is also available as a podcast Hi Friends, This year Church of the Redeemer is doing some work to think through how we worship – assessing our liturgies, and naming our core values as a worshiping community. In Aug...

Rector's Blog: The More You Love

This blog is also available as a podcast. On my 10th birthday I got a CD player and my first two CDs. They were pop phenomenon Paula Abdul’s debut album, Forever Your Girl, and glam-rock band Cinderella’s Long Cold Winter. Thus began m...

Rector's Blog: If God is Love

This blog is also available as a podcast If God is not Love, I don’t really see the point of church. I don’t think Church makes you a good person. I don’t think it exists as a tool of self-improvement. It’s not ...

Rector's Blog: Scared of Death

This blog is also available as a podcast On my 30 th b irthday I attended an autopsy. I should explain. It was the summer of 2009 and I was working in a chaplaincy program at Washington Hospit...

Rector's Blog: A Tale of Two Churches

This blog is also available as a podcast It’s a tale of two churches. One is grieving. The church they knew and loved is gone. The building is there, as beautiful as it has ever been, and many of the people are still engag...

Rector's Blog: Will The Church Survive?

This blog is also available as a podcast I hear this question so often. Sometimes it’s asked directly and explicitly. Other times it is implied. It’s not a new question, by the way. I have been an Episcopalian for 20 years, and I have ...

Rector's Blog Throwback Series: A Need for Hope

Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on September 30 2021. This blog is also available as a podcast I didn’t really th...

Rector's Blog Throwback Series: Hoping for Peace

Editor's note: This blog is part of our Throwback Series and was originally posted on December 17, 2021. The blog post is also available as a podcast. “This year I resolve to be more sexist.” It was New Year’s Eve ten years ago...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: We Don't Talk About Abortion

Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on May 20, 2022. This blog is also available as a podcast. The prevailing narrative in our country is that ...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: We're Taking a Break

Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on November 18, 2020. This blog is also available as a podcast. Back in April, shortly after Church of the R...

Rector's Blog, Conversion

This blog is also available as a podcast I remember my final year of seminary when I found out where my first job was going to be. I called up one of my mentor s, a priest who had overseen my work at a local church , and I said, “I...

Rector's Blog, Pride Series: You Are A Blessing

This blog is also available as a podcast Hey, friends, I am still recovering from COVID, and am in need of rest, so I do not have a new blog/podcast for you this week. That being said, we are at the beginning of Pride month, and I did no...

Rector's Blog: Bury The Rag Deep

This blog is also available as a podcast William Zantzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll. This is the first line of a song Bob Dylan wrote when he was 22 years old. The song is called The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, and in it, Dyl...

Rector's Blog: We Don't Talk About Abortion

This blog is also available as a podcast The prevailing narrative in our country is that Christianity and abortion rights are incompatible with each other. This narrative exists despite the fact that , outside of White evangelical pro...

Rector's Blog: Learning what I Believe

This blog is also available as a podcast. I have not always believed in someone’s right to have an abortion. In fact, my change in belief is fairly recent . I grew up in a religious tradition that taught me in no uncertain te...

Rector's Blog: We Believe

This blog post is also available as a podcast Friends, in the weeks to come, I will be devoting my blog(podcast) to the conversation about reproductive rights, and especially abortion. It is a difficult topic. The Christian co...

Rector's Blog: Magnificent and Complicated

The blog post is also available as a podcast. I was at a wedding once back in my mid-20’s where both the bride and the groom had lost a parent – both their fathers had died. I remember this for two reasons: First, because my own ...

Rector's Blog: For The Unprepared

This blog post is also available as a podcast We are in the midst of Holy Week, and Easter is upon us, and that can only mean one thing for me: I have failed at another Lent. It has become my new tradition, failing at Lent. I cann...

Rector's Blog: Throwback Series, Proclaiming the Blessing You See

Editor's note: This blog is part of our Throwback Series. This blog post was originally posted on March 17, 2021. The blog post is also available as a podcast. I believe that LGBTQ+ people are a blessing to this world. The church ...

Rector's Blog: Thy Kingdom Come

This blog is also available as a podcast Episcopal author and activist Vida Scudder wrote these words in 1917: “This is the hour of opportunity ; this is the hour of the Church. In the last fifty years she has accomplished a great pr...

Rector's Blog: Incompletely White

This blog is also available as a podcast. During one of our Lenten Series discussions, I saw a really beautiful moment of vulnerability, curiosity, and affection . I want to share it with you because I t hink it illustrates some o...

Rector's Blog: Angry and Beautiful

The blog is also available as a podcast. The first time I heard the band Nirvana , I was in 7 th grade. Their breakout song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was all over the radio, and its video was in constant rotat...

Rector's Blog: Practicing Promise

The blog is also available as a podcast. The first five books of the Bible, t he Tora h, comprise the narrative that shapes and defines the people called Israel. The other books of what we Christians call the Old Testament ...

Rector's Blog: Following Love, Finding Transformation

The blog is also available as a podcast. I have been married for almost 14 years. I didn’t get married because I wanted to change. I didn’t get married because I wanted to become a different kind of person. I got married because I love...

Holding Space for Frustration and Hope

The blog is also available as a podcast. We are entering into a time of hope. I’m not talking about the religious season of Lent, though that is wonderful: I’m talking about this time in our church in relation to COVID-19. Tra...

Rector's Blog: Throwback Episode, Make You Odd

Hey, friends, welcome to my podcast, When Love Shows Up. This week we’re going to rerun an episode from last year because I find it has held its relevance in terms of our community response to COVID-19. While some of our guidelines have change...

Rector's Blog: For the Bengals

This blog is also available as a podcast “Ok, it’s time for a serious question,” the Search Committee member said to me. I was in the living room of a parishioner in the midst of the final round of interviews for the role I cur...

Rector's Blog: Sibling Rivalry

This blog is also available as a podcast There are no wounds like family wounds. When families fight, the stakes are higher, the passions run hotter, the love, hate, resentment, and care all run deeper. This is the way of things...

Rector's Blog: Jesus is a Jew

This blog is also available as a podcast Jesus is a Jew. This is a central part of Jesus’ identity, and it is essential for Christians to understand Jesus’ Jewishness if we are going to be serious about our faith in him. ...

Rector's Blog: For Our Children and Their Educators

This blog is also available as a podcast This week I had to tell my kids that they were going back to remote learning. It was pretty terrible. I told them on the drive to school . It was going to be the last day of in-perso...

Rector's Blog Throwback Episode, In Service of the Melody

Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on October 7, 2021. This blog is also available as a podcast Typically, when I ask someone what k...

Rector's Blog Throwback Series, More Than You Can Bear

Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on September 9, 2021. This blog is also available as a podcast The phrase “God will never give ...

Hoping for Jesus

This blog is also available as a podcast I’m a talker. If you know me, you already know this. I’d like to hope that my talking is not for its own sake, and that even when I go on too long and talk too much there�...

Hoping for Peace

This blog is also available as a podcast “This year I resolve to be more sexist.” It was New Year’s Eve ten years ago and we were standing in my kitchen. It was just my friend Rebecca and me – our spouses were in the other...

Hoping for Company

This blog is also available as a podcast We have family coming for Christmas, and I’m pretty excited about it. One of the hardest things about moving to Cincinnati has been not having family nearby. And, of course...

Hoping for Normal

This blog is also available as a podcast I was a workaholic before the pandemic. I used to think being a workaholic meant someone who worked 80 hour weeks or never took days off. I took days...

The Gratitude in the Grief

This blog is also available as a podcast When my family sits around the table to eat, one of the children usually presides over the pre-dinner prayer. This prayer sometimes becomes a rambling litany of thanksgivings. Other times i...

The Whelming Flood

This blog is also available as a podcast “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows...

Fall Throwback Series, Loneliness and Belonging

This blog is also available as a podcast. This past Sunday the Church of the Redeemer held in-person worship for the first time in 7 months. I have to tell you it was absolutely wonderful. In the truest sense of the word: filled wi...

Fall Throwback Series, Where is Jesus in your Spending

This blog is also available as a podcast. Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Fall Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on July 22, 2020. Where is Jesus in your spending? I asked y...

The Gift and the Work that Follows

This blog is also available as a podcast If you’ve been around the Church of the Redeemer the last few months, you’ve likely noticed that our grounds have never looked better. This was no accident, and in fact there’...

Tacos and Friendship

This blog is also available as a podcast When I told my friend Brian I would be leaving Southern California and moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, he did not bring up our friendship, or the weather, or the church I served, or the re...

Rector's Blog: Equipping the Sent - A Financial Commitment for 2022

This blog is also available as a podcast “Sent into the world, rooted and grounded in love, to serve all people with humility, compassion, and faithfulness.” As we emerge out of the isolation we have ...

Rector's Blog: In Service of the Melody

This blog is also available as a podcast Typically, when I ask someone what kind of music they like, they will respond with specific genres. They’ ll say, “I like country,” or “I like rap,” or “I like classic rock,” or...

Rector's Blog: A Need for Hope

This blog is also available as a podcast I didn’t really think much about Hope until it was politicized. It was the 2008 presidential campaign, and then Senator Barack Obama ran with the slogan “Hope”. In the spirit of transp...

Rector's Blog: Waiting for Jesus

This blog is also available as a podcast Dear Paul, you told us that Jesus was coming back. You said he’d be coming back and making everything right. Jesus isn’t back yet, and things aren’t all right. Oh, and also people ar...

Rector's Blog: Life on Purpose

This blog is also available as a podcast Do you think your existence is an accident? Are you here by coincidence? Do you just happen to exist, and now you’ve decided to cobble together something that vaguely resembles pur...

Rector's Blog: More Than You Can Bear

This blog is also available as a podcast The phrase “God will never give you any more than you can handle” is a particularly nasty bit of bad theology that has infiltrated our lives and made them measurably worse . The proble...

Rector's Blog: Uncurated Love

This blog is also available as a podcast I remember watching TV when I was a kid and waiting for those commercial breaks. This was when you got a refill of your drink, or grabbed a snack or, in the most dire of situations, went to the bath...

Rector's Blog: God of Transformation

The blog is also available as a podcast . One day God changed Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah. While this moment may have been coming for a long time, and while in retrospect, it may seem obvious to us why that name change ha...

Rector's Blog: A New Sunday

This blog post is also available as a podcast. Beginning on September 12th, we will be offering a new Sunday worship schedule, and we will be returning to our full array of four worship services: Rite I Eucharist, Rite II Eucharist, The Ba...

Rector's Blog: Meant for These Times

This blog is also available as a podcast. My favorite Beach Boys album, Pet Sounds , includes a song where Brian Wilson opines repeatedly, “I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.” It’s a reflection on feeling disconnected,...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: No Such Thing as Secular

This blog is also available as a podcast . Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Summer Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on August 5, 2020. Every time I preach or write about th...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: I am Thankful for You

The blog is also available as a podcast. Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Summer Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on November 25, 2020. One Thanksgiving we put our names in...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: Real Unity

This blog is also available as a podcast. Editor's note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Summer Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on January 27, 2021. Unity is the buzzword of the month. I...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: What about the Bible?

This blog is also available as a podcast. Editor's Note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Summer Throwback Series we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on June 14, 2019. When as a Church we say we believe in the ...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: Witness!

This blog is also available as a podcast. Note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Summer Throwback Series, we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on June 7, 2019. What if the Church really listened to LGBTQ+ pers...

Rector's Blog Summer Throwback Series: You Are a Blessing

This blog is also available as a podcast. Note: As part of our When Love Shows Up Summer Throwback Series, we are re-posting this blog post which was originally posted on May 31, 2019. The Church of the Redeemer believes in the full ...

Rector's Blog: It's Your Church

This blog is also available as a podcast. In my first church job, whenever I would allow myself to be consumed by stress, my boss and mentor would remind me of the Pope who would conclude each day with the prayer, “It’s your ch...

Rector's Blog: Emergence

This blog is also available as a podcast . I was watching the cicadas in my front yard yesterday and was struck by something. First of all, there are a lot of them. I mean, a lot of them. Dozens of shells of the molted cicada exoskeletons sit...

Rector's Blog: Make You Odd

The blog is also available as a podcast. This past week, I preached about how odd being a Christian is. I addressed this message first to a room of several dozen people in masks sitting in every other pew, distanced at least 6 feet from on...

Rector's Blog: Not a Blog

This blog is also available as a podcast. Friends, I won’t be writing a blog this week. As you know, last week I announced that we would be returning to in-person worship indoors. This Sunday at 9am we will participate in Holy Eucharist ...

Rector's Blog: Regathering Ready

This blog is also available as a podcast I am pleased to be able to tell you that the Church of the Redeemer will resume worship indoors on May 16th. I want to devote the rest of this week’s blog, and likely next week’s as well...

Rector's Blog: This Blog is Not About You

This blog is also available as a podcast This blog is not about you. It's about your neighbor. Your neighbor belongs utterly to God. Your neighbor carries Christ within them and is as much a sign of God’s presence in the world as ...

Rector's Blog: With Ma'Kiyah Bryant

This blog is also available as a podcast . In the first century, an unknown Christian author wrote a sermon-like letter to a group of fellow Christians who were living under persecution, injustice, and uncertainty. They were scared, and they ...

Rector's Blog: CARE Team Love

This blog post is also available as a podcast. Rachel Blinka helped me get vaccinated. She didn’t know that was what she was going to do when she set up that Zoom call with me. We were just going to talk about her decision to become ...

Rector's Blog: Sent Ones

This blog post is also available as a podcast. I originally wrote this a little over a year ago as we meditated on The Way of Love – The Episcopal Church’s rule of life. My focus, as you’ll see, was on our movement out into the world...

Rector's Blog: Church, Dead and Resurrected

This blog is also available as a podcast. I really thought we’d be back indoors by now. We saw the COVID case numbers start to dip after the holiday surge, and the vaccines started to come out, and I thought, “This is it: We&rs...

Rector's Blog: Proclaim the Blessing You See

The blog post is also available as a podcast. I believe that LGBTQ+ people are a blessing to this world. The church community I serve, the Church of the Redeemer, affirms this belief, as does the Episcopal Church to which we belong. We do ...

Rector's Blog: One Year

This blog is also available as a podcast. This week marks the one-year anniversary of the day the Church of the Redeemer decided to cease in-person worship and indoor gathering. Friday, March 13th, 2020. The clergy, staff, and wardens gath...

Rector's Blog: Hard Times Come Again No More

The blog is also available as a podcast. Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears while we all sup sorrow with the poor. There's a song that will linger forever in our ears Hard times come again no more 'Tis the so...

Rector's Blog: Proclaiming Suffering, Proclaiming Joy

This blog is also available as a podcast. Something really beautiful happened during the Annual Meeting this Sunday. Actually, it happened more than once, and it kept happening. First of all, I want to say that the meeting itself was magical...

Rector's Blog: A Vision of Beloved Community

The blog is also available as a podcast. At the Church of the Redeemer, we have a vision . We have a vision of a worshiping community that knows Jesus and grows in Love: United in relationships of holy connection and communion; growing w...

Rector's Blog: Proclaiming the Dream

This blog is also available as a podcast. What if you knew you were loved fully, totally, unconditionally exactly as you are right now? Knew it in your bones and felt convinced of your belonging in this world? Now, on top of that, what if ...

Rector's Blog: Update On Regathering

This blog is also available as a podcast. Friends, it’s been a while since we spoke about how our church is dealing with the pandemic, and I thought it might be time to catch up, and to provide as clear a picture as I can give you abou...

Rector's Blog: Real Unity

This blog is also available as a podcast. Unity is the buzzword of the month. In the aftermath of the deadly insurrection that capped off a traumatic election season that took place in the midst of the (still ongoing) greatest public health ...

Rector's Blog: Stubborn Christians

This blog is also available as a podcast. I became a priest, in part, out of stubbornness. I was a waiter at the time, and my coworkers had a lot to do with my decision. Throughout our time working together, many of them consistently commu...

Rector's Blog: When We Repent

This blog is also available as a podcast. Last week I wrote that throughout the Epiphany Season, I planned to interview parishioners about their vocation for my blog. Then Wednesday, January 6th happened. We watched a violent act of insurr...

Rector's Blog: Your Epiphany

This blog is also available as a podcast. Ok, so Christmas is over. The baby was born. Jesus is here. God with us. Now what? In the church we celebrate a season called Epiphany, and I’m here to tell you it’s underrated. Epiphany ...

Rector's Blog: Wait and Wonder

This blog is also available as a podcast. Every year is the same. Every Christmas, as the day approaches, we stress about the same things: About our expectations for the day, for the season, about if we will give and get the right things for...

Rector's Blog: Rest in Peace

This blog is also available as a podcast. Yesterday I held my friend David’s hand. He told me he loved me. I told him I loved him. We talked about what had been, and what was coming. He told me he was ready. He told me he loved me again. I...

Rector's Blog: Rest Dysfunction

This blog is also available as a podcast My wife has a sleep disorder. It’s called Narcolepsy. You’ve probably heard of it, though you don’t necessarily know what it does. I remember thinking narcolepsy meant someone would fall aslee...

Rector's Blog: I am Thankful for You

This blog is also available as a podcast. One Thanksgiving we put our names in a hat. There were four families of people together that Thanksgiving – which feels so odd to imagine heading into this quiet little COVID holiday, but there...

Rector's Blog: We're Taking a Break

This blog is also available as a podcast. Back in April, shortly after Church of the Redeemer transitioned to remote and digital ministry, we had a realization: We were losing money. In response to the pandemic and based on our B...

Rector's Blog: Are You Tired?

This blog is also available as a podcast. Can we rest yet? Is it time? The dizzying, never-ending buzz, the exhausting, contentious election season, and the marathon Groundhog Day experience of a four-day Election are all in our rearview m...

Rector's Blog: In the Hands of a Competent God

This blog is also available as a podcast. Do you have your plan? We’ve been hearing this question a lot lately as Election Day approaches. And of course, it’s referring to your need to come up with a plan for how you will vote:...

Rector's Blog: When Jesus Votes

This blog is also available as a podcast. In Ireland, during the Troubles, if someone was asked, “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?” and they responded, “I’m an atheist,” the question would come back immediate...

Rector's Blog: Why Christians Must Say Black Lives Matter

This blog is also available as a podcast. I do a lot of premarital counseling with couples. I don’t spend any time trying to figure out if these two belong together – that’s above my paygrade. And I don’t test them ...

Rector's Blog: Your Commitment in 2021

This blog is also available as a podcast. I’m writing to you today about how I’d like you to make a financial commitment to Church of the Redeemer in 2021. If this makes you uncomfortable, I hope you stick around anyway: Your u...

Rector's Blog: A Place for This Church in Your Life

This blog is also available as a podcast. It seems like we're supposed to preface everything these days with, "I know this not how we'd like things to be but..." We have an understanding, of course, that our lives have been radically up...

Rector's Blog: Unity not Uniformity

This blog is also available as a podcast. When I was growing up, we talked about politics in my family. Which is to say we argued a lot. Mostly around the dinner table. I’m not sure what there was to argue about – for all inten...

Rector's Blog: Last Sunday I Stayed Home

This blog is also available as a podcast. I stayed home and watched church on Sunday. I know you probably did too, since there were only 9 people in the building that day. But, y’know: Normally I’m in it. So even when we’...

Rector's Blog: Holy Connection and Communion

This blog is also available as a podcast. When we first started piecing together our Vision Statement a couple years ago, we knew we needed to talk about relationships. The relationships we build and foster here are like the marrow of the ...

Rector's Blog: I miss taking Communion

This blog is also available as a podcast. "I miss taking Communion." "Really? What do you miss about it?" I was not prepared to be challenged by a priest when I said I missed communion. But that was what was happening. I wanted him to say, �...

Rector's Blog: Building Unity

This blog is also available as a podcast. Last Sunday I walked down the center aisle of our Church for the first time in a long time. What’s more, I wasn’t alone! A small group of us had gathered together to rehearse the st...

Rector's Blog: No Such Thing As Secular

Last Spring, I preached a sermon about the political implications of the Gospel. It was, I have to tell you, not my favorite topic. Talking about divisive things in the church makes me squirm, and what’s more divisive than politics in our curre...

Rector's Blog: What Percentage of Your Income Do You Give to The Church?

This blog is also available as a podcast. What percentage of your income do you give to the church? Do you know the number? I have almost never known this number my entire life. I remember learning that in the Bible there was a mandate fo...

Rector's Blog: Where is Jesus in Your Spending?

This blog is also available as a podcast. Where is Jesus in your spending? I asked you this question last week, but I sort of hid it at the bottom of the blog, so maybe you didn’t notice it. We don’t get to avoid that question ...

Rector's Blog: We Sold Our House

This blog is also available as a podcast. Last Fall I was sitting in a presentation at our Annual Clergy Day and had no intention of having my life changed. My preference would have been to simply survive the day and get home before Cincin...

"We believe that the God that created you made you as you are on purpose. You are not a mistake. Your sexuality is not a mistake, a sin, or something to be cured, fixed, or healed. You are a blessing.

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