If someone had asked me 5 years ago if I would be working out of a hospital-based program to counsel victims of violent crime in the most underserved parts of Peoria, I would probably have looked at you funny. Then, I wouldn’t have been aware enough of my own privilege to know how privileged I was to work my part-time hours in a group private practice with people who could well afford my psychotherapy services. There is a place for that work, but I was soon to learn that there are other needs that need to be met for justice to get a little closer.

When we are forced into patterns we can’t control we see who we really are. We see what we love. And it may not be what we expected or what we wanted to be true.

This is a time to take stock. I think many of us have done this before now, maybe in another crisis (personal or not), where we have gone through a mental list of who and what is important to us. But after we have done that this time, we may find that there is more...mostly because we have so much time on our hands and are especially isolated and not in control…

Kids have worries. Some are things adults worry about too, but some of the things they worry about aren’t real. To a child, however, those things are very real. They think there are monsters everywhere: in the closet, in a dark room, in the toilet (and then refuse to sit on the potty). As a parent, I’ve had to deal with all kinds of worries from my kids. When I’m well rested and feeling good, I can give an A-plus response to their worries- even the ones that I know are nothing to worry about. I’m great at helping them calm down and reassuring them that everything is going to be okay. But when I’m woken up 20 minutes after I’ve gone to sleep for the night, I might have a C-minus response at best. I imagine that’s how Jesus felt in this story.

I’ve always connected deeply with the parable of the Prodigal Son. The idea of always being able to leave and deeply screw up but always be allowed to return, be forgiven, and be loved just as deeply as if I had never left made me so happy. To have someone care for you just that deeply! I love my parents and I know that they love me, too, but as a child and even now, I always worried that their love for me was measured. That they would never be able to love me if they found out I was kissing girls, or the fact that I really wanted to be a gender other than what I was. I always thought that the second they found out, I would be kicked to the curb. Did that really happen, though? No. I was one of the lucky ones. I know others that weren’t, though.

Due to the fact that all public schools, many large gatherings, sporting events and churches in our community have decided to cancel services, we too have made the difficult decision to cancel Sunday services temporarily. We will not meet this Sunday, March 15th or next Sunday, March 22nd. We will reevaluate the next steps at that time. Stay posted as we will have more details in the coming days about ways we can still find spiritual enrichment and community during this Lenten season.

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them.” - Matthew 19:14

The Sunday before Christmas, in his sermon, Josh mentioned friends putting out water in the desert in Mexico so that migrants had something to drink. I knew in that moment that we were headed south. Lewis, who was on the security team, had moved a few rows ahead of me. He turned around, looked at me, and I knew he felt the same. Every day for at least a month before this, I had listened to the old hymn, Have Thine Own Way, Lord, Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.

My smoke detectors broke at my house, and so my landlord sent his fix-it-person over to repair them. As we were staring up at this contraption, beeping away at us, he asked me what I did for a living? I told him I was a pastor, and he got excited. He asked what church I pastored, and I told him Imago Dei. He wasn’t familiar with that church, so I described us as being a flavor of church that wouldn’t be for everyone, but for many there is no other church that would embrace them. He looked very perplexed and inquired about what I meant…I explained that there are many at Imago who were made to feel unwelcomed in some churches because they questioned parts about their faith, didn’t believe correctly, were divorced, single past 22, women who were denied roles of leadership, gay folks, trans folks, and allys of the such. He was now on the top of the ladder, fussing with this fire alarm, attempting to stop the chirping. Just as he unplugged it from the electrical connection, he looked down on me at the ground level and asked, and do you think all of those things are moral? With that, the fire alarm started sounding off because the battery was still nuzzled tightly inside of it.