FAYETTEVILLE NC - Perhaps a fitting time to calm the nerves, my attending church on this trip was Trinity on the Hill UMC. I especially enjoyed the appropriately minor-key instrumental arrangement of “The Old Rugged Cross” from the pianist ( Read more... )

MOBILE - As always, Sunday of vacation requires me in church in a passive role. So 8am found me at First UMC in Pensacola, where even the minister agreed that "Jesus as the source of division" (Luke 12:49-56) is a challenging idea to consider.

I retrieved Chad from the hotel, and then we went across state lines for the 11am service at Ashland ( Read more... )

If it's Sunday, it's meet the church - in this case, St James United, where the minister received a lesson of his own: the newly-baptized baby girl prefers Mom to him. So much so, the baby stopped fussing as soon as he handed her over to Mom.

It was then diagonally across the street to The Guv'nor Inn & Pub for lunch. Keeping with the local ( Read more... )

ALBANY - Because of incessant rains over the last week in upstate New York, today’s game became today’s games, starting an hour earlier than originally scheduled.

That included church. Fortunately, I had a 9:00 service in reserve for just such an occasion: Albright UMC. The sermon challenged us to overcome our superficial differences to become ( Read more... )

COLUMBIA SC (8/20) - Vacation always reboots the soul, none more so than on Sundays that I don’t have to play the piano at church. Instead, I can just kick back and enjoy the sermons.

And what sermons they were.

The special speaker at Matthews UMC was a professor/minister from England brought in for a speaker’s series about science and creation. ( Read more... )

MORGANTOWN -- When all else is lost, where could we go but to the Lord?

Well, our trip already had a church visit planned, and that was at the West Lawn UMC for an 8:00 service. Needless to say, Chad wasn't feeling the spirit that early, though he probably secretly reveled in my phone call to Dad in the parking lot before we left ( Read more... )

PASCO WA -- My original intention was to hit the 8:30 service at Brown's Point UMC, which overlooks Tacoma, and then an 11:00 service at Auburn's First UMC with Chad in tow. However, summer services at Brown's Point instead start at 9:00, which was too little time to return, pack everything up, and be there by 11:00. So instead, I looked in the ( Read more... )

FREDERICK MD -- The day started off on an unfortunate note. As of 4:41 am, the smoke-alarm battery started chirping. Every 47 seconds. Ultimately, Chad tuned it out, but I had no such luck, and instead partook of the various media options on my laptop until such time as the breakfast bar would open. (The front-desk clerk could only help to the ( Read more... )

LOUISVILLE -- The day started off with a tour of the Indiana state capitol. Actually, it started with me retreating from the capitol's entrance back to the car with Chad's verboten Swiss-army knife in tow. Once inside, we had a nice self-tour, even finding the capitol chapel. After pecking out a hymn on the chapel's piano, we headed out of town and ( Read more... )

SHUT UP & DRIVE

ALBUQUERQUE -- As is tradition every Sunday I'm out of town, I hit two church services. The 8:30 service was at Polk St UMC, where it was Kids' Day. They delivered everything except the sermon, which was entitled "What We Learn From Kids." Along with the regular awshuckness in kids running the service was the Victim in the tale of ( Read more... )