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