First Presbyterian Church of Valparaiso

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church... - 1 Corinthians 12:27-28a Teamwork makes the dream work! It's a simple, but accurate phrase. If I were Eugene Peterson working on The Message Bible, this might be the phrase I would use for 1 Corinthians 12. Packed within these six words are grand ideas and invitations to share time and talents, to work alongside God to fulfill a divine dream of a reconciled and whole creati

This summer, I have had the privilege of performing a ministry program known as Clinical Pastoral Education ("CPE") at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago. The program consists of 400 clinical hours and includes two group sessions per week with an educator and four other students. When I tell people what I do during the program, I say that I am essentially a chaplain intern at the hospital. In other words, I provide spiritual and other types of sup

Since my last blog, I had been thinking about the issue I brought up. A funny thing happened; when I was flipping through my personal email inbox, I came across an article within our Presbytery's newsletter. This was an article which interviewed the author Haydn Shaw. Haydn Shaw recently wrote the book Generational IQ: Christianity Isn't Dying, Millennials Aren't the Problem, and the Future is Bright. According to the interview, it touches on the challenges of the changi