I have led 10 pilgrimages to the Holy Land. As you might imagine, much of that ancient land remains unchanged from trip to trip. After all, the place has existed for millennia; what difference could a few years make? But there IS one place that is very different from when I first visited in 1984. […]
Big news, Chapel Hill!
In consultation with the Session, we’ve decided that starting Sunday, January 9, our classic worship service will be at 9:00 am and our modern worship service will be at 10:30 am (with nursery and children’s ministry at BOTH service times…yes!). There are a few reasons we’re making this change: the first is resources. Our services require a ton of teams: worship team, welcome team, tech team, security team, and kids’ ministry team, to name a […]
We really missed you!
“Welcome back, Pastor Mark. We really missed you…but we really didn’t miss you!” That was one of the welcomes I received when Cyndi and I returned from our sabbatical. And I understand…and am DELIGHTED…with what I know they meant by that. They love me and are glad to see me. AND…they are telling me that […]
The bell instead of the tape
I have never run a marathon, but I have friends who do. They tell me about the “wall”—that point midcourse where you don’t think you can take another step. But somehow, they find a way to keep going until, at last, they throw themselves across the finish line, utterly spent. But imagine this with me: […]
Other
I was talking with a member of my LifeGroup last week. He told me of a time when he was walking in downtown Seattle (before that was considered a life-threatening adventure!) and noticed a homeless person begging on the sidewalk. As my friend describes it, he literally crossed the street, walked 20 feet, and crossed […]
Sabbatical
This September will mark the beginning of my 34th year as Senior Pastor of Chapel Hill. This is unusual. The average tenure of a Senior Pastor in the United States is 7.7 years. I’ve been in Gig Harbor more than four times longer than that. When my large-church colleagues ask me how I’ve stayed in […]
Spiritual start-ups
I don’t know when they installed it. It certainly wasn’t during my time living there. But I’ll never forget driving the freeway past my home town of Yakima and seeing a large, garish sign that declared: “Yakima: The Palm Springs of Washington.” I actually laughed out loud. I’m not sure what ad agency came up […]
Big MO
If you are old enough to remember the original Monday Night Football, you might also remember commentator “Dandy” Don Meredith. When one team was hopelessly outgunned, Meredith would break into song: “The Party’s Over.” He also spoke of “Big Mo.” He wasn’t referring to the battleship Missouri. He was talking about “momentum.” When a team […]
For…
So…what do you do when you’ve spent months as a congregation, turning your focus outward, talking about what it means to be good neighbors, good citizens…? What do you do when you’ve filled a map in the lobby with stickers indicating ways in which your people are reaching out to really love the community around […]
Finding treasure…
There are many wonderful Chapel Hill ministries that had to take a hiatus last year. Isn’t it great, as we are breaking out of the COVID funk, to see so many things returning to normal? One that I’m particularly excited about is Vacation Bible School which will launch next week! We were able to expand […]