The same day I listened to a Lovecraft story, I found myself living out a related scenario. A passage in Ephesians has shed light on how we see others and their stories ..read more

For the last year, a small group of us at Harbor have been meeting as a “mindfulness” small group. Once a quarter we engage in mindfulness practices that pair breathing exercises with personal reflection to help us grow in virtues and skills related to caring for others (e.g. forgiveness, empathy, trust). In the month of June, we took a second pass at practicing forgiveness—the virtue of inner acceptance and reparation. We have learned a lot about what forgiveness isn’t: it’s not a one-time decision, it doesn’t justify other people’s actions, it never ignores the hurt, and it is not the same t ..read more

Many years ago when I was preparing to graduate seminary and looking at job boards, I had to make a decision: will I consider working at non-affirming churches? Now as an LGBTQ+ affirming person, this would seem like an obvious decision (“Hell no!”). And yet, in case you don’t know the church job market: it ain’t good. Open jobs are few and far between in any ministry job market, especially in the non-denominational LGBTQ+ affirming market. During that search, as I was cold calling churches I found on gaychurch.org, I knew that (1) I wanted to become a pastor and (2) I wanted to move back home ..read more

What happens when a defense mechanism runs amok? Not too much content from my evangelical past has stuck with me to my post-and-decidedly-anti-evangelical present. The number of authors, speakers, and musicians from that tradition that remain in my life is roughly the same as the number of love languages, or members of DC Talk, or enneagram personality types. Certainly fewer than the number of books in the Left Behind series. But still on my shelf (well we’re still unpacking, so it’s in a box) is Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s 1992 classic, Boundaries. You’ve probably heard 13 seminars and 5 ..read more

Coach is a common word these days. I even call myself a “spiritual director and coach” on my professional website. Coaching is a valuable skill. I have benefited a great deal from coaching so, again, not against someone calling themselves a deconstruction coach. Some people need that one-to-one regular support from a coach, just like I have, and I’m all for it. Once this process of leaving traditional churches because of ideological and political differences got the label, “deconstruction,” a whole industry started to take off. Courses, coaches, and communities sprung up and we have a raft of ..read more

In this recent season of ministry (both at Harbor and in-person), a theme has emerged: we need relationships in different generations in order to heal and grow.  Over the weekend, I told my 83-year-old grandma we need her at church. Let me explain. I have been the interim pastor at a new church in Orange County, California, that primarily hosts folks in their 20s and 30s. While there are younger children and some folks in their 40s and 50s, it is obvious this is a “young church.” Since I have started my role there, my grandma comes on Sundays and she sticks out like a sore thumb. She is a ..read more

It’s sort of like my spiritual practice First of all, I understand that a chess article while the world burns is like a Met Gala while bombs are being dropped. There are agonizing horrors happening right now, cries for justice rising up and going unanswered. I don’t want to minimize that, but still I think we need self-care, we need recreation, we need small ways to find and claim and clutch joy. For me, one of those ways is chess. So perhaps to convert you to chess life, or perhaps just to entertain you with a display of nerdiness, I wanted to share with you this love letter to the game of ch ..read more

This week I (Dawn) am in Toronto presenting a paper at an academic conference about my PhD research so I thought for this week’s blog I’d offer a version of part of my paper. My research is about the spirituality of artists, how every single one of us is creative because we are made in God’s image.  In this dumpster fire of a world, why should we invest time in something as frivolous as making art? How is taking pictures on your cell phone, making a dent in the human scale of destruction we are participating in. Making art could be considered escapism: wandering with a cell phone instead ..read more

Last week, we began our series studying the book of Acts in the New Testament (written about 80s or 90s CE) that traces the story of the early church from Jesus’ heavenly ascent to well into Paul’s ministry. As Jon wrote about and shared last week, we are using scholar Willie James Jennings’s commentary on Acts as a significant pillar of our studies (he is so brilliant and also we are finding we need plenty of time to metabolize his work). Jennings understands the book of Acts to be a portrayal of revolution: the Spirit of God disrupting in the midst of empire and diaspora. One of the most sig ..read more

“I hope you are reading this while laying down!” ― Tricia Hersey, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto As children, we learn so much about work from watching our parents, guardians, and other adults in our lives. Many of the values they hold about work they teach us through school. I grew up under the care of a single parent working 40-60 hours a week in a community of fishers, foresters, and farmers. 9-5 jobs were for city people. We woke up with the sun and fed, milked, lifted, cut, hauled, moved, and operated until the moon was up.  You may already be familiar with the Nap Bishop, Tricia H ..read more