Christmas is just not Christmas without being with my extended family.  However, going home is never easy for me.  It always carries with it the ache for those who are no longer with us.  Christmas Eve was my father-in-law’s birthday, I ache for my husband. Christmas Eve was also my...

Last March we moved our Embrace Richmond corporate offices onto the campus of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond (BTSR).   I love being at BTSR.  It has allowed me to have greater contact with the seminary community.  In the past two weeks, I have participated in several classes and...

I got very excited when I read these words in a post titled, On Planting Churches That Do Not Cannibalize: The Luke 10 Project, by David Fitch: Let’s stop funding church plants (has anyone noticed it ain’t working?) and fund missionaries here in North America. We need to seed fresh...

Embrace Richmond is in an interesting season.  Our co-laborer, Reverend Janie Walker, is leaving Embrace Richmond to start a new expression of church in the Hillside Court area.  It will not look anything like the traditional images of church.  It will be a collaborative effort of many...

Rob Bell’s newest book “Love Wins” has set off a fire storm of ridicule and name calling from the religious right.  In an effort to take the high road in this debate, Rachel Held Evans has invited bloggers to participate in a Synchroblog which she has titled “The Rally to Restore...

photo © 2006 Ivy Lique | more info (via: Wylio)I grew up outside the church and one of the things that kept me out of the church for many years was the divisions among Christians. I came to faith in an ELCA Lutheran Church in my late 20’s, attended a Methodist Church for many years, and was...

photo © 2010 Vards Uzvards | more info (via: Wylio)I have wanted to write this post for a very long time, but was too afraid of the possible backlash from some segments of the Christian tradition.  However, all the hype over, “whether Rob Bell is a Universalist or not”, finally gave me...

Do you remember this scene from the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?” “Is he a man?”, asked Lucy. “Aslan, a man?”, said Mr.Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you, He is the King of the wood and the son of the...

photo © 1963 The U.S. National Archives | more info (via: Wylio) On MLK Day all across this country countless readings of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” address will be read.  However, it is his words from his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” written on April 16, 1963...

When I explain to people that I work in the inner city and have a call to social justice ministries, I always get stories back about how they know someone who runs a clothing closet, or about how they served in a soup kitchen one time or give money to people on the street.  I have nothing...

Recently a friend of mine shared concern over the fact that her children, who are in their forties, love Christ and live by Christian principals but have little interest in being a part of the institutional church. I read this quote this week over at Emerging Mummy which speaks to why some...

Several months ago my friend Charles and I were delivering school supplies to a church for inner city children living in Church Hill.  This community was named Church Hill because there is a church on nearly every corner; large stately churches that cast ominous shadows.  I mistakenly missed...