It’s an interesting time in our culture and country to be Christian.  After decades of significant decline in church and secularization in wider culture, research suggests that the trends are reversing.  Young people, especially, are finding their way back to church; much of the greatest growth is happening in traditional liturgical environments like Catholicism and […]

“Marley was dead…”  Those are the opening words of the old Charles Dickens play A Christmas Carol, the story that has been told and retold until “Scrooge” has become synonymous with a miserly, joyless person, and if you want to sound like a grumpy, joyless downer at Christmas, everyone knows you use Scrooge’s phrase, say it with […]

Trust Me is the name of a brilliant short story written some decades ago by John Updike.  In a dozen or so pages, he weaves together several stories about Harold, who explores the mysteries of trust.  We meet 4 year old Harold at the edge of the swimming pool with his father’s arms outstretched; we follow […]

This morning’s sermon takes us to the city of Thessalonica on the shores of the Aegean Sea in Macedonia.  It is around 51CE. What drove my scripture choice today was the lectionary.  That’s the cycle of readings in the Presbyterian Church that gets us through the Bible every three years.  Most of the time in […]

Over the next four weeks we’re going to be in a sermon series about growing in your relationship with God.  This growth happens in different ways for different kinds of people, and we’re going to focus on prayer, mission, music, and community.  We hope that you’ll connect with at least one if not several of […]

For all of the reasons indicated in my introduction it seems like today is a good day to talk a bit about church and think about who we’ve been, who we are, and who we are becoming together here at Knox.  More and more these days, we seem to hear new members and visitors who […]