Category: Pastors’ Column

I remember the Ash Wednesday when everything went wrong. I was moving a small bowl of ash, and it tipped over. Black palm ash went everywhere! It is so fine that you can’t just sweep it up but rather need to attack with damp cloths and the knowledge that you will not leave the affair unmarked. My hands resembled those of a chimney sweep- molted with soot. My fingers were tipped with perfect half circles of pitch-black embedded under each nail.

To make matters worse, I had lost 90% of the ash we needed for the evening service and had to call my Episcopalian colleague to see if she had any extra. She was kind enough to point out the streaks of ash across my cheek and nose. It was a mess. After all, what else can be expected with a name like Ash Wednesday? But Ash Wednesday is just a messy start to a messy season.

On the one hand, Lent is an incredible invitation to refocus on God, to take a thoughtful pause from the things that distract us, and to practice the parts of our faith that are the most meaningful. On the other hand, Lent can feel like another set of rules and obligations. It can become one more thing on a long list of things “to do.” After all, the rest of the world doesn’t enter into a “holy pause” just because the pastors start wearing purple stoles on Sunday. People don’t suddenly become more reflective and thoughtful just because we stop using “hallelujahs” in our worship. Violence doesn’t stop because we promise to avoid social media for 40 days. Hunger doesn’t go away because we give up chocolate. I often think that Lent would be easier if we, like Jesus, could spend these 40 days in the wilderness. But Lent has never been an invitation to escape from the world. Rather, it is a call to make this journey through the messiness of the everyday. Perhaps the beauty of Lent is that it reminds us that faith can grow even in messy places and that we can walk with Jesus through the mess.

Now, as a seasoned pastor, I know to be exceptionally careful when dealing with ash. Today, as I clean up from Ash Wednesday, it will take a few rounds to wash away all the oil and ash and a few trips to put away candles and scrape up wax. I hope each of those steps will be a prayer. A reminder of God’s presence even in the mess our attempts to practice faith sometimes produce. I’ll be praying for each of you as your Lenten journey begins. I pray that your shoes get dirty as you explore new paths. I pray that you are distracted by the beauty of creation surrounding you. I pray that you hear God in unexpected places and find the Word of God guiding you in unforeseen directions. I pray that your heart breaks when you see the suffering of others, and I pray comfort surrounds you in the care of a friend. I pray that you hunger for justice and righteousness and I pray that you fight for peace. I pray that you feel the callouses that grow from hard work and service. I pray that within each day, you find time to rest and breathe. I pray that ash and oil stick around, marking you as Christ’s own.

If you’re looking for a bit of inspiration, read from the Lenten Devotion and see how others in the church are turning back towards God. You can find copies around the church. You are also invited to join us in Children’s Ministry as we follow a calendar of daily reflections to help us reconnect to God and one another. You can follow along via Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bmpc_children/) or pick up a paper copy in the education building.

Each year, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church asks the youth to lead the church in congregational Worship on Youth Sunday. As the Associate Pastor for Youth & Their Families at BMPC, it is likely unsurprising that I believe this Sunday to be one of the holiest days in our church calendar.

We invite our teenagers to plan the worship liturgy, our youth deacons and elders to preach, and our youth ministry members to provide liturgists for the entire service. Every other Sunday, these roles are filled by pastors or elected leaders of the church. It is consequently a unique and precious moment when we recognize our teenagers’ full membership and giftedness in worship.

Wesley W. Ellis wrote in his book Youth Beyond the Developmental Lens: Being Over Becoming, in terms of ministry with children & young people, “We are watching as human beings are being encountered by God in unexpected ways, and we are waiting to discover how we might be able to join that drama by saying yes to God.” So often, when we think of ministry with young people, we focus on their development and how they might eventually grow into someone worth listening to someday. But Ellis argues that all beings, children to youth to adults to older adults, have something worthwhile to share in the Church. The Church is a place where everyone’s voice is valued.

Each Youth Sunday, we, as the congregation of BMPC, witness God’s action in our teenagers’ lives as they invite us into a deeper relationship with God through their leadership. I hope you can attend this year’s Youth Sunday on February 11, 2024!

This Sunday is also the Souper Bowl of Caring, where all are invited to bring nonperishable goods to support the various hunger ministries to which we at BMPC are connected. Remember to bring nonperishable foods to worship this coming Youth Sunday!

My first winter at BMPC was in 1983. What a winter that was. That February, Philadelphia was struck by a blizzard named “Megapolitan Blizzard” (21 inches of snow). Record cold temperatures prevailed. I still remember going to Chinatown with BMPC members for dinner and thinking, “I’ve never been this cold before!” (this is from a guy who grew up in Iowa and then went to graduate school in Rochester, NY!) That spring, the Music and Fine Arts Council decided to offer a “Midwinter Festival” the following February, on the Saturday before Lent – as a kind of “Bryn Mawr Mardi Gras.” Plenty of skeptics said, “Jeff, BMPC will never go for this.” Happily, they were wrong, and a tradition began that continued for nearly 25 years.

Last spring, our council decided to revive the Midwinter Festival, offering “100 Years of Cabaret” on Saturday, February 10. Produced and directed by Lawana Scales and starring Sherri Shields and Louisa Mygatt as your “guides,” this will be an evening to remember. What will you experience at this year’s festival? Amazing homemade desserts and a program that will walk the audience through 100 years of American history through comedy routines, music, skits, and surprises. Fats Waller, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and PDQ Bach are among the composers you will hear. You’ll hear highlights from “Les Misérables,” “Wicked,” “Porgy and Bess,” and “Miss Saigon.” How many of you know that we have a pastor who is an expert in “lip-syncing?” Did you know that at least two of our pastors are musically gifted and passionate about Carole King? Have you ever heard George Peters do a comedy routine? Did you know that one of the choir’s basses is a fan of Julia Child? Did you know that we have at least two “rappers” in the choir? And, for those of you who remember our early Midwinter Festivals, yes, there will be a “Surprise of the evening.”

Tickets are flying. You may purchase yours Sunday after the 10 a.m. service or from the Music and Fine Arts office during office hours. Chase away the winter blues at BMPC! Celebrate 100 years of Cabaret.

Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Miriam, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna – these are names of just some of the senior adults that God used in significant ways as told in scripture. Even if they had retired from work to support their livelihood, God still actively engaged them in ministry in a variety of ways. I am thankful to get to support senior adults at BMPC in ways that enrich and engage them in active ministry in service to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here are some upcoming initiatives having to do with senior adults (keep reading even if you are not a senior adult):

The Senior Adult Council, chaired by Pam Haynes Walsh, seeks to support, nurture, and foster spiritual enrichment and fellowship among BMPC seniors. It does so through sponsoring social and educational programs, events, and trips, as well as supporting local seniors in need, offering mission volunteer opportunities, and promoting intergenerational activities. If you are 60 or older, the council asks that you take this 5-7 minutes survey to inform our council about member interests.

BMPC is partnering with a non-profit agency, Surrey Services for Seniors, to provide senior adult enrichment and educational programming in the Foerderer House starting in mid-March. Surrey Services has similar programming in other locations already, and we look forward to this programming that will be on our campus for BMPC and members of the broader community. There will be open houses for this upcoming programming occurring in the Foerderer House (the house adjacent to the Radnor parking lot) this Sunday, January 28, from 11-1 and on Wednesday, January 31, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. The programming will have on-site staff, but will need significant volunteer support. If you are interested in exploring volunteer options, here are two links with information.

pdf Volunteer Roles at Bryn Mawr ( 140 KB )

Volunteer Roles at Bryn Mawr pdf Surrey Volunteer Application ( 114 KB )

Surrey Volunteer Application This next opportunity is not limited to senior adults! The BMPC Caring Ministries team has invited back Laurie Lewis to present at a symposium entitled, “What to Say to People Who Are Hurting.” She has written a book by that title, and she was a retreat leader for our Deacons a couple of years ago as they focused on this topic. She will share lessons learned through years of experience to help us grow in our capacity to encourage, listen, and be a supportive presence in everyday encounters of life. This event will take place on Saturday, March 2 from 9 to noon. To request more information or to register contact, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

It is a joy that God is using BMPC members and facilities in so many ways! God’s care for and use of people of all ages certainly continues!

Almost every night since January 2 the Atrium and Gymnasium here at BMPC have been used to shelter men sleeping outside in our community on these cold nights of the winter. For them it is a much-needed relief from the stress of sleeping in the elements, of navigating spaces where they are not welcome, and simply a respite from the dangers of being outside in the cold.

The question for us to consider is what means for us as a community to take on a new yet vital mission as a congregation.

I grew up in a church in Pittsburgh where a whole section of the gothic building, originally called the Wayfarers Chapel, was converted in the 1980s to a men’s night shelter. While my father can tell me stories of assisting the pastor in leading their early Sunday morning service in that Chapel as a young elder, I never knew the room as a space for worship – only a space of shelter. Above the doorway to the chapel was a stone relief carving of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It was somehow prescient that the 1930’s architects and artists chose that theme for the chapel not ever imagining that fifty years later the neighborhood and the focus of the church and eventually the use of that space would change so dramatically.

But for me, it was formative as a child and teenager to know that our doors were open to the unhoused in our church neighborhood. Sometimes it meant that we met and greeted them on our way into church as they hung out in the block around the building. Sometimes it meant Sunday nights at youth group cooking and serving the men dinner as a service project. Sometimes it meant attending the 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning service we hosted in the dining room next to the shelter where local pastors would rotate through as preachers. In all those moments the choices that the church made in that generation helped to teach me what it means to be a welcoming and hospitable Christian community.

Here at BMPC, a lot of different folks from the community spend time in our church gym. From yoga classes to Parkinson’s exercise, from Boy Scouts to the Baldwin basketball team. Already the community at large (or at least a portion of our community) knows that they are welcome in our space. But there is something even more significant about using our space as a shelter.

The very first Friday that we were open, the shelter set up and the Baldwin girls’ practice intersected, and instead of being a conflict of space, it became an opportunity for the girls’ team to learn about what we are doing and pitch in with set up. One of those girls is one of our own BMPC middle schoolers, who went home that afternoon to joyfully share with her parents that she learned about the shelter and even got to help set it up.

When I chatted with the student that following Sunday, it is not an exaggeration to say that she is excited to know and to understand how her church is helping the most vulnerable in the community. Her sense of pride in this and sense of commitment to pitching in where she can was a helpful reminder to me of how growing up in a church with a shelter shaped my understanding of what it means to be church as well. My hope is that embarking on a project like this is about shaping all of us as people of faith, teaching all of us what it means to welcome the neighbor and the stranger into our building.

The holidays are only holy if we make them so.

These words popped off the page of one of my Advent and Christmas devotionals a couple of weeks ago when I was perusing the books in my pastor’s study while crafting the Advent sermon series. They seemed to pierce through the holiday distractions, as if to ask: Is the holiness of God’s light and love, mercy and grace, finding room in the devotion and action of my days amid the hurried rush of this busy season?

The holidays are only holy if we make them so. I began thinking about those places where I experience holiness in the bustling, joyful, painful, complicated season of Advent which is about something so much deeper than all the stuff we often get caught up in.

I imagine I’m like most of you. On top of the usual daily rhythms, I’ve been buying gifts and wrapping them up, writing notes and scurrying to the Post Office, donning the dog with a Christmas collar and hosting friends for dinner, making family plans and packing a suitcase for travel. I would suggest that all of this busy-ness is a form of holiness, in that it is bound up in love and joy, but not all of it is pure devotion to God.

When our children were young and Christmas was even more chaotic, I used to wrap their presents in my church study and store them in my closet under my robes and stoles because there was no good hiding place in our house. On Christmas Eve, the four of us went to the afternoon family friendly service, then home for dinner, and I returned to lead the later one. Before preaching and presiding over communion, I’d load all the Christmas presents into my car so I was ready to head out when worship was over and the church locked up. What I remember most about that midnight drive home was its holiness. Gratitude for candlelight and Silent Night, a quiet and solitary sense of peace and joy, awareness of wonder while I gazed at the stars on my drive home. Holiness.

That’s what I hope for each of you come Sunday. In worship may you find the holy in your holiday, and may the quiet holiness of peace, joy and wonder lead you home.

The word “Advent” means “coming,” or “drawing near.” During this season, Christians throughout the world prepare for the anniversary of Christ’s first coming through reflection on our yearning for wholeness and salvation. Such reflection can serve to heighten our sense of anticipation for the Christ Child’s birth, which we will celebrate on Christmas. The Advent season also reminds us that Christ will come again at the end of time to reign over heaven and earth in majesty.

To help you “draw near”, the Sanctuary Choir, Singing for Life, Youth Chorale and Bryn Mawr Festival Brass will present an Advent Service of Lessons and Carols, this Sunday, December 10, at 4 p.m. This service originated in 1880 with E. W. Benson, Bishop of Truro Cathedral in England. His service included readings and carols for Christmas, and was offered as a prelude to the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. It was adapted in 1918 by Dean Eric Milner-White for use at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, England. The BBC began broadcasting this service nationally in 1928. Today, it has been broadcast internationally for more than seventy- five years and is among the most popular and widely heard church services in the world.

In 1934, Dean Milner-White created A Procession with Carols on Advent Sunday for use at King’s, basing it on his earlier Lessons and Carols for Christmas. In his preface to this new service, Milner-White wrote: “In the old English liturgies, the Advent Offices made a preparation for the coming of our Lord to this earth far more vivid and eager than those of our present Prayer Book. The purpose of the service is “not to celebrate Christmas, but to expect it.”

Sunday’s service is filled with gorgeous choral works, readings chosen to prepare you for the coming of Christ, and many carols for you to contribute your vocal gift to the glory of God. An offering will be received to benefit Prevention Point Philadelphia, an organization committed to helping drug addicted people in Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

When I was a child, my church in Pittsburgh always hosted a little “shop” on a Saturday morning in December where children of the congregation could come and buy small items for everyone on their Christmas list. Some items were donated by church members and others from a local wholesaler who traded in dollar store items. I am sure the day will come in the future when I clean out my parents’ home and I find all of the switchblade combs and costume cocktail rings that I bought for them over the years. Even though the gifts weren’t significant, there was a significance in teaching me what it means to give gifts at Christmas.

When our son Owen was little (and even when he wasn’t all that little), I would typically take him to our local Ten Thousand Villages to buy gifts for his grandparents and friends. In the same spirit, we approached our shopping as a way to talk about why we celebrate Christmas by giving gifts, what it means to pick something out that will feel meaningful to the people we love, and how we shop in responsible ways.

In recent years, even now that Owen is technically an adult, we use the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Advent Gift Market Catalogue in the same way. We make a list of the people for whom we are shopping each year and consider which of the often over 17 organizations represented in the Market would be meaningful for the people in our lives.

During 2020 in particular, the AGM catalogue was a great way to reach out to family and friends when we couldn’t be together. That year through AGM, we sent folks books donated to the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children. One of my mother’s friends, very likely someone who had walked me through that little shop at church 40 years ago, reached out to say how grateful she was for such a thoughtful gift. It was such an easy gesture on our part, but was so meaningful to her.

This year we once again have a catalogue full of the life of mission and ministry supported by this congregation. I hope that those of you who have made AGM an important part of your gift giving each year will once again support our partners locally and around the world. I hope that those of you who have never given a gift through AGM will choose this year to give a gift that will have meaning not just to your recipient, but to the organizations whose work continues year round.

You can start shopping as early as this Sunday, November 12th, when the online shopping site at www.BrynMawrAGM.com goes live. Online orders are typically ready in a few days.

But I also strongly encourage you to join us for our opening celebration on Sunday, November 19th when representatives from our committees, Boards and Councils will have more information about each of our partner organizations. In person shopping will also begin that day.

In this moment when we all are seeking ways to make an impact, the Advent Gift Market is once again the perfect way to have a meaningful giving season.

A number of years ago, a woman named Sara Miles wrote a memoir called Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. It was about her experience of coming to faith. She had grown up in a family of atheists. But she was a journalist who was by nature curious, so one Sunday morning when she was walking by a church in San Francisco, she went in and sat down to see what was going on in a worship service. It was a church that practiced open communion, and she found herself transformed by receiving the sacrament. She shared her experience saying, “I think what I discovered in that moment when I put the bread in my mouth and was so blown away by the reality of Jesus was that the requirement for faith turned out not to be believing in a doctrine, or knowing how to behave in a church, or being the right kind of person, or being raised correctly, or repeating the rituals. The requirement for faith seemed to be hunger. It was the hunger that I had always had and the willingness to be fed by something I didn’t understand.”

God created us as beings who need to be fed, who have yearnings that emanate from within us that inform us of our need. Our hunger tells us we need physical food. But we also have a hunger to feel connected with others, to be in communion with them because God made us to be relational beings. To have needs is not a bad thing if there is plenty available to meet those needs. When we come to a dinner table with our stomachs already full, we might enjoy just a taste of a delicious dish. But when our hunger is met with something delectable, particularly in the company of those we love, it is fulfilling in more than just the physical sense.

This first Sunday in November is when we observe All Saints’ day. During our 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. worship services, we will, with grateful remembrance, name those from our congregation who have died in the past year. Our once-a-month Evening Worship at 5:00 p.m. that is geared for all ages will focus on the sacrament of communion. During our congregation’s 150th anniversary celebration, we have been aware that we stand on the shoulders of people of faith who preceded us. In a mystical way, we are still in communion with them. In the Apostles’ Creed, we affirm our believe in the communion of saints. That term is not limited just to those who have been beatified by a particular part of the church like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Teresa of Calcutta. We’ve known other people that get referred to as saints because they are so generous with their time and assets or because they are extraordinarily patient around difficult people. But what the word ‘saints’ refers to as used in scripture and in the Apostles’ Creed includes all people throughout time who have been made holy by Christ’s redemptive work. That includes people with plenty of spiritual inadequacies like you and me. It also includes those who have preceded us in earlier generations.

We hunger for bread, for connection with God, and for connection with other people of faith, here and beyond. I want to share with you imagery of the afterlife. I’m not sure of its source. In this image hell is portrayed as people being eternally seated at a great banquet table of sumptuous foods, yet none of them are able to bend their elbows, so they can’t indulge themselves of the tantalizing feast. Heaven is portrayed in much the same way. There is a great banquet table filled with delectable delights. Here too, the people are unable to bend their elbows. Yet because they understand that they can feed each other, the banquet becomes heavenly.

Come this Sunday to have multiple hungers addressed in hopes that the Last Supper becomes the Lasting Supper. And for those whose old-fashioned clocks don’t automatically reset, remember to ‘fall back an hour.’

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. David and Ruth Watermulder Theologian-in-Residence lecture series. The goal at the time was simple. As Dr. Eugene Bay described it in a letter to the Watermulders, the plan was to bring to BMPC on an annual basis, some prominent churchman or churchwoman, who would be in residence for up to a week’s time, teaching, lecturing, and preaching.

Named in honor of the Watermulders and in celebration of their leadership to this congregation and community, the list of those prominent churchmen and churchwomen reads like a retrospective of the most creative and thoughtful biblical and theological minds of the past and current generation. In this anniversary year, we are so grateful to welcome the Rev. Dr. Scott Black Johnston as our Theologian in Residence, adding to the illustrious list of those who have come before.

In his most recent book, Elusive Grace, Dr. Black Johnston begins with the story of a visit that he and fellow Presbyterian pastor Patrick O’Connor made to pray with then President-elect Donald Trump. Both Scott, as the pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church across the street from Trump Tower, and Patrick, as pastor of the Trump family congregation in Queens, felt a calling to reach out in that moment in prayer for our nation moving forward.

To say that the reaction to this act of prayer was “mixed” is an understatement.

Seven years later this is still a moment of high anxiety and conflict in our nation, in our communities and even within some of our own families. That makes the topics of this weekend’s presentations incredibly apt, Fight Like Jesus: How Faith Can Inform Conflict. In his two lectures and Sunday worship, Scott will help us reflect on the wisdom offered to us in scripture for how we experience healthy conflict and how we seek reconciliation.

In Elusive Grace, he writes this on the topic of loving your enemies:

“Sometimes all it takes to lose an enemy is to see a rival as a human, to see them as worth regarding, to see them as bigger than the caricatures our minds have drawn, to see their challenges, to appreciate where they have come from, to listen to their story, all while enjoying a piece of pie together, a delicious slice of grace.

Grace is a game changer. It upends the rules of engagement. It changes us. It changes others. It frees us from everlasting spirals of anger and revenge and opens us to an elusive possibility: peace. Peace with our enemies, and peace within our broken hearts.”

In these days we all are in desperate need of a measure of grace with one another and with ourselves. Come and reflect with us on what that kind of grace looks like for us as a community of believers committed to being engaged in the world around us.

Join us this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. in Congregational Hall, as well as on Sunday in the Sanctuary worship service, and finally again in Congregational Hall at 11:15 a.m. for all our Theologian-In-Residence activities.