Saint Paul in Prison, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1627 Dear Incarnation, What a joyful Sunday. I loved starting our series in Philippians and celebrating our 8th birthday! (I also loved discovering after church that in the intro to my sermon I'd confused Mark Hamill, Star Wars guy, with Scott Hamilton, figure skater — neither of whom is Alexander Hamilton, first Treasury Secretary. I laughed about that all day!) And I loved the opportunity to welcome and pray for our September outrea

Incarnation's launch team in 2018! Which faces do you recognize? Dear friends, This week I’ve got a letter full of mostly-unrelated, newsy updates (yay fall!). Thanks for reading and see you Sunday! Happy birthday, Incarnation! Eight years ago today, we launched the public worship of Incarnation Anglican Church. Back then, I never could have imagined that I would be your rector. I never could have imagined we’d plant a church in Maryland. I never could have imagined you, this

Dear friends, Two Sundays ago, we gathered in the home of Leigh McAfee to pray through the Incarnation Examen together. I was so grateful for those who showed up to pray, including many who are new(ish) to our church! If you missed it, you can read the responses from our prayer time on the leaf post-its in the church narthex. I encourage you to read these as you consider your own prayers for our church. As I have said many times, this summer discernment was not in response to

Heilung der Schwiegermutter des Petrus, Rembrandt van Rijn, c.1650-60 Dear friends, You've probably seen the Ignatian prayer group that we've been advertising for the past few weeks; if not, details below! This group is something new we're exploring/piloting this fall (we love to "just try stuff" at Incarnation!) and is the outgrowth of many months of conversations with Laura Niver. Laura's tenacious desire to grow in prayer is an inspiration to me, and I'm grateful that she'

Made by a child who participates in a midweek small group! Dear friends, Happy August! I had the privilege of spending the past two Sunday evenings at Holy Comforter as their pastor, Katie Hamlin, was on vacation. It was so wonderful to worship with them! Will you pause right now and pray for our friends at Holy Comforter in their work of church planting? We could also call this work "seed sowing" or "dough fermenting" or "field buying" in the language of Jesus' parables from

Scenes from recent Wild Wonder weeks after church: felting with Mandy, rocks with Jamie! Dear friends, I hope you are finding ways to slow down, rest, and play this summer. Please make sure to take a blank postcard from the narthex to send the church from your travels (but be warned: postcard mail moves slowly!) — it’s so fun to receive these! Earlier this summer, I invited our congregation to a summer of listening together in prayer. I hope you will all take a copy of the In

The view from our back porch on a rainy morning in Maine Dear Incarnation, I’m back from my vacation and very grateful (as ever!) to our wonderful staff team for capably holding down the fort. Did you catch the staff interview series they kicked off last week? I loved reading TJ’s musings on cold water, photosynthesis, and so much more, and I’m delighted by the opportunity to hear from members of our team over the coming weeks. And I’m grateful to all of you as well, for once

A summer Wild Wonder scene from many years past! Dear friends, Happy summer! School is wrapping up and summer officially begins this Sunday. I’m ready for the long days, warm weather, and relaxed rhythms of summer — how about you? Things relax at church, too. This is Ordinary Time, the longest season of the church year. “Ordinary” is taken from the word “ordinal,” as in the ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc), because that’s how the church counts the long stretch of S

The Widow's Mite (Le denier de la veuve), James Tissot,1886–94 Dear Incarnation, As my tears on Sunday showed, it is often tender to talk about money. At our core, we are all wondering whether there really is a God who has our best in mind, who will actually take care of our needs, whose kingdom is actually one of abundance rather than scarcity. And we often feel those questions most acutely in our money. As you continue to reflect on these tender matters, I have three simple

Sylwia Perczak (Polish, 1977–), “Boga nikt nigdy nie widział, Jednorodzony Bóg, który jest w łonie Ojca, o Nim pouczył” (Polish for "No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known" from John 1:18), 2023. Dear Incarnation, I loved celebrating Trinity Sunday with you! And I had several rich conversations afterward about the trinitarian nature of God, which is a bottomless well of contemplation. During my ser

“Amazed and astonished, they asked…” (Acts 2:7) Dear friends, I always love Pentecost Sunday. The children’s leadership, the languages, the paper airplanes, the candle lighting, the testimonies of God’s Spirit at work, the quiet prayers for gifts. I am often surprised by which of the Isaiah 11 gifts most resonates with me in a given year; this year, I was moved to pray for Counsel (described as, “to listen to God in our hearts; to receive God’s guidance about what should be d

Pentecost by Andrew Wyeth, 1989 (USA) Dear friends, This Sunday is Pentecost, the Feast of the Holy Spirit, one of the biggest celebrations of the church year (annual reminders: wear red and bring something to share for a global potluck!). Pentecost is also the culmination of the year for our children’s ministry, so we adapt our liturgy to mimic what they would be doing in the Atrium on this day. It’ll be more participatory, more visual, more tactile. We’ll also invite the ch

O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (from the Compline service in the Book of Common Prayer) "Gardener" by Janpeter Muilwijk (Netherlands), 2014. I love how the white blossoms mark Jesus' wounds and he is opening the gate around the tree.

A scene from the shadow puppet theater at our shared Incarnation-Holy Comforter Easter Vigil Dear Incarnation, It was wonderful to worship together on Sunday, and I’m so grateful for the beautiful weather for our rescheduled parish meeting! Thank you to everyone who helped us quickly reset the sanctuary and set up the playground with the all-important sound system, coffee, and snacks. You all are the best! On Sunday night, I headed over to Holy Comforter for their parish meet

Il Buon Pastore (The Good Shepherd), Arturo Martini, 1925 (Italy). I took a photo of this sculpture at the Vatican Museum last summer because I loved the shepherd's happy expression! Dear Incarnation, My sermon on Sunday was on the instructions for relating to governing authorities in 1 Peter 2:13-25; a challenging passage, and a difficult one to preach the morning after yet another act of political violence. I’ve gotten a LOT of responses to that sermon, and I appreciate all

We gave TJ LOTS of baptism experience this winter! Dear Incarnation, I was sad to reschedule our parish meeting on Sunday, although it wouldn’t be Incarnation if we weren’t flexing around something unexpected! I wanted to share one of the updates from that meeting in this week’s letter. You might recall that at our parish meeting a year ago, we announced that TJ Ono would be serving at Incarnation as a deacon. Every deacon needs a church in which to serve, and our bishop had

Comic #10 in a 30-day series on the resurrection by Madeleine Jubilee Saito. See the entire series on her site here . Happy Easter, friends! Easter is a whole season, not just a single day, 50 days (longer than Lent!) of celebrating the resurrection and all that it means for our lives. Jesus' resurrection shows us that God's salvation of the world is happening through the material world, not in spite of it; through our human bodies, not in spite of them. One simple way to c

The Resurrection of Lazarus, Julia Stankova, 2006 (Bulgaria) Dear friends, Our Lenten season of preparation is nearing its end. Holy Week begins this Sunday! You can see all of our services on the Holy Week page of the website. This is the first time we've ever been settled in a single building for the duration of Holy Week, without needing to teardown and setup between every service. As a result, we're trying a few things we haven't done before. And I invite you to try some

Healing Of The Blind Man by Michael Buesking Dear Incarnation, On Sunday, I preached about the fourth step of the Prayer of Examen: Face your shortcomings . Honestly name what has gone wrong in your day and in yourself. Saint Ignatius understood that this can be a daunting step, one that can inadvertently lead us away from God and into self-absorption, even self-loathing. That’s why it comes so late in the Examen, after laying a solid foundation of God's presence, illuminat

Jamie Floyd, one of our former worship leaders, recorded this calming version of Eat this Bread (Taizé) for us during the pandemic. It is one of the most-viewed videos on our YouTube channel. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. (James 5:13) Dear friends, We are about halfway through our Lenten journey. We’ve spoken often of “journeying by stages,” borrowing language from our Old Testament passages the past two weeks. Like our spiritual ancestors, we journey by stag