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Blogs

Inspiring Generosity

1/20/2021

Make It a Great Year: Your 2021 Stewardship Calendar

Inspiring Generosity

1/13/2021

1/6/21: A Reckoning of My Identity

Greater NW Pride: Inclusive Language: Update (Again)

1/12/2021

Inclusive Language: Update (Again) When I was born, and during my early, formative years of life, the Bible that I read, and the society in which I lived, used words such as “mankind” and “men” as all-inclusive words.  "Father God" was normal language. Even in 1969, the astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered the phrase on the moon: that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And women were to feel included in such phrases.  The idea of anyone being non-binary gender was not on ...

Inspiring Geneorsity

1/6/2021

Paycheck Protection Program, Second Stewardship Letter, and More!

Greater NW Pride: Landmarks

1/5/2021

Landmarks In a recent, year-end, issue of Portland’s alternative newspaper, Willamette Week, there was a review of the changes in Portland in 2020 since the arrival of the COVID 19 pandemic. New leaders sprung up around the city. New habits we have picked up (masks, anyone?). New issues came to the light of day that had long been hidden. And landmarks around Portland had closed. One of those landmarks is well-known in the Portland LGBTQIA+ community: CC Slaughters.   Reporter Shannon Gormley ...

Greater NW Pride: Pondering

12/29/2020

Pondering   In the Gospel of Luke, the word, “ponder” is used twice in the first two chapters. The first time is when the angel Gabriel visited Mary, saying, “’Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greetings this might be” (Luke 1: 29). The second time was after Mary was visited by the shepherds who came with a message from the angels, in which “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart”(Luke 2:19)....

Greater NW Pride: The Ten Year Anniversary of the Repeal of DADT

12/21/2020

The Ten Year Anniversary of the Repeal of DADT   On December 22, 2020, we as a nation, especially in the LGBTQIA+ community of US citizens, will have something to celebrate. We will celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the repeal of the dreaded, awful, Rube Goldberg-inspired, compromised and compromising DADT policy in the US armed services.   What is DADT? For those not familiar with this abbreviation it stood for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It is an historic practice that was evil.   A bit of ...

Inspiring Generosity

12/16/2020

And the Winner Is...The Top Inspiring Generosity Posts of 2020

Greater NW Pride: On Being an LGBTQIA+ Parent

12/15/2020

On Being an LGBTQIA+ Parent   In 2007, my book, On Being a Gay Parent was published by Seabury Press/Church Publishing Group. It was a first in many parts of the publishing world. I wrote the book and hosted/wrote a blog with that name, simply because there were very few books in the world that spoke about being a gay man of faith, ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), raising his children with his partner and the children’s mom in the same town, and living  life fully as a ...

Inspiring Generosity

12/9/2020

5 year End Tips for Greater Giving

Greater NW Pride: Gay Hallmark Holiday Movies and Me

12/8/2020

Gay Hallmark Holiday Movies and Me   While I was aware of the presence of Hallmark movies during the pre-cable days, when television merely had stations—yes, I’m that old—I’m also aware of the Hallmark Channel that can be streamed, with 24/7 viewings of Hallmark movies, along with Lifetime, Amazon Prime, Hulu, TLC, HGTV, and Bravo. The formulaic script for these Hallmark Hall of Fame movies are well known in our middle-class, white, suburban, straight, cisgender society. By and large, the ...

Inspiring Generosity

12/2/2020

COVID Impact for the Long Haul

Greater NW Pride: World AIDS Day, December 1, 2020

11/30/2020

World AIDS Day, December 1, 2020   In the rush of good news of three possible COVID 19 vaccines in the last week, the impact of such news is not lost among those who are alive and HIV positive (HIV poz). Indeed, many lessons about how to deal with this pandemic have come from dealing with the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. Testing, contact tracing, and other preventative measures that have been executed during the COVID 19 pandemic’s early days are straight out of the book(s), articles, ...

Inspiring Generosity

11/25/2020

A Thanksgiving Like None Other

Greater NW Pride: Calendars, Remembrances, and Thanksgiving

11/24/2020

Calendars, Remembrances, and Thanksgiving   I carry two paper program calendars with me from my respective homes in the Presbyterian Church (USA)(PCUSA) and The United Methodist Church (UMC). Each one tells me the holy days in the life of the Church, the secular holidays like Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, as well as the programmatic special days, like “World Communion Sunday,” “Youth in the Church,” and “Disability Sunday,” to name a few. On my iPhone, I also have a calendar that reminds me ...

Greater NW Pride: Role Models

11/19/2020

  Role Models   In 1980, I went to Princeton Theological Seminary to pursue an M. Div. My call to ministry was somewhat split between pastoral ministry and an interest in how people with intellectual disabilities understood or knew God if they were unable to communicate using written or spoken language. Having been a music therapist, I knew that the young people I worked with, many who were labeled as autistic, knew the world through music, but not necessarily through spoken, let alone ...

Inspiring Generosity

11/18/2020

Steal This Letter! Christmas Edition

Inspiring Geneorsity

11/11/2020

2 More Reasons to Consider a Second Pledge Drive in the New Year

Greater NW Pride: Quitting Church

11/10/2020

  Quitting Church   In an article this week on religionnews.com website, “Study finds that queer Christians quit the church twice as much as others,” Kathryn Post writes of a study by Brandi Woodell (sociology professor at Old Dominion University) and Philip Schwadel (social profession, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln), published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion that reports that “same-sex attraction, behavior, and queer identity is strongly associated with a decision to step ...

Patient? You Want Me to Be Patient?

11/4/2020

Patient? You Want Me to Be Patient?                   Now this is patience. Peter Fischer@pixabay I want to know who the ignoramus was that said, “Patience is a virtue.” What? You say it was Saint Paul? And he said it a few times? Maybe not exactly in those exact words, but pretty close? Oops. My bad. Sorry Paul.   And here’s proof:   Romans 8:25 – But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.   And then there’s Galatians 5:22-23 (which I almost hesitate ...

Inspiring Generosity

11/4/2020

Patient? You Want Me to Be Patient?

Greater NW Pride: A Rushed Wedding

11/3/2020

A Rushed Wedding   The below post started to spring up all over my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts in the last few weeks. I lost count of how many times this message, or something like it, sprung up, with pastors, ministers, rabbis, and priests from all denominations and religions, including some retired bishops of both The United Methodist Church and Episcopal Church, some who never “showed their hand” about where they stood on marriage equality before, offering officiating ...

Inspiring Generosity

10/28/2020

My Silent Witness, Four Years Later

Greater NW Pride: Two Dads Coffee, LGBTQIA+ People, and the Church

10/27/2020

Two Dads Coffee, LGBTQIA+ People, and the Church   Those who know me well will not be surprised when I write that I like to drink coffee in the morning, and sometimes into the afternoon, which I am currently doing as I write this blog. I prefer a dark roast, without half and half or sugar. Along the way I’ve collected mugs as well for drinking my coffee. And wherever I’ve been on pilgrimage around the world, I’ve tasted some great coffees, from Machu Pichu in Peru, to Spanish coffee in ...

Greater NW Pride: Pope Francis and the United Methodist Church

10/22/2020

Pope Francis and The United Methodist Church   This is not the blog I was going to post this week. But one thing that I’ve learned in writing newspaper columns and personal essays is to go with the flow of the news when big events happen. The other blog that I was working on will be great next week as well.   The big news yesterday, October 21, 2020, happens to be Pope Francis making a pastoral move in the movie, “Francesco,” in which he says, on camera, that “homosexuals have a right to be ...

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