About: Vocation (vocare: to call)

Since November 1982, I’ve been a pastor in Presbyterian churches — in Pittsburgh for seven years, in Columbus, Ohio for thirteen, in Elmira, New York for almost eleven, and now in suburban Pittsburgh since January 2013.  It’s a calling that doesn’t always weigh easy on me, and yet I can’t conceive of  myself as doing anything else.   As I have found my own particular way in this calling, I see myself as a worker in words and ideas for the building of the kingdom of God.  That’s why this adventure in blogging seems like a good place for me to apply some of my energies.

The Christian life and faith grows from roots deep in the Bible, a body of words, ideas, visions, narratives, curated by and alive with the breath of the Holy Spirit.  The true living Christian faith is impossible to compartment off in one corner of life.  There is no place where the hand of the Creator and Sustainer of existence is not present and at work.  You’ll find words and ideas in this blog about broken men and women on the streets of the city, about the joys and sorrows of the living room and the bedroom, about the mating songs of toads in my backyard, the bluster and blather of politicians, and . . . what else? . . . oh, yes, the glories and foolishness of the Church of Jesus Christ.  You can listen to sermons, pray prayers with me, wrestle with and sometimes be pinned by the Word of God.

There are almost ten years worth of words and ideas in this blog as of this writing.  That’s a lot of stuff to rummage through.  I hope you do that.  And please, use the comment section.  Let’s make this a conversation.