By CBF-BWIM Clergy Sexual Misconduct Task Force In the summer of 2016, CBF’s Ministries Council in partnership with Baptist Women in Ministry formed the Clergy Sexual Misconduct Task Force to address and prevent clergy sexual abuse in our congregations and communities. The Task Force, which is composed of pastors, professors, lawyers, non-profit leaders, social workers, and experts in abuse prevention and response, meets regularly to learn about clergy sexual abuse, support survivors, host workshops, offer training, and create resources for congregational education and poli ..read more

John 20:1-18 The Easter narrative in John’s gospel begins, happens, and continues through Mary Magdalene. She finds the empty tomb. She tells the disciples. (Then after they focus on a foot race, who did and saw what, how the clothes were lying in the tomb, they leave). She stays. She weeps over Jesus. She meets the angels.   She hears Jesus call her name. She holds on to Jesus. She receives instruction from Jesus. She goes and shares the good news. In my daughter’s freshman year of high school, the theatre department selected Sister Act for its winter musical. As with any musical she is ..read more

I was in seminary in Boston when the pandemic hit. A couple of friends and I were on spring break in Maine when we got the email from our dean telling us we wouldn’t be returning to in-person classes after the break. That was the first of many communications I received that moved life online. A few weeks later, I watched my church’s Easter service on YouTube from my apartment. My pastor had taken to recording weekly sermons outside around Boston. The usually overcrowded areas were suddenly empty in the videos. It was eerie. The Easter service was recorded in a cemetery. But unlike the videos o ..read more

July 2020 was a pivotal moment in my family’s life. Not only had Covid-19 disrupted life as we knew it, but we also sold our home of 12 years and moved 12 hours away. It was one of those experiences that define a journey. You can probably name moments like that in your own life—specific moments about which you say, “That was when everything changed.” Perhaps it was a birth, a death, a job change, a diagnosis, a global pandemic. We’ve all had moments when life as we knew and understood it changed, and most of us can testify to the anxiety, confusion, reactivity, and fear that often accompany su ..read more

Defy Gravity! It is by far my family’s favorite Broadway production. We have enacted it for COVID birthday greetings, karaoke, and one-liners. It is the show Wicked. Telling the back story to The Wizard of Oz, it focuses on a green, female witch, Elphaba, who is made fun of and bullied for being different. She is loathed by her peers and told that her amazing magical skills can never be appropriately used. At a pivotal point of self-definition, Elphaba sings: Something has changed within me. Something is not the same. I’m through playing by the rules of someone else’s game. Too late for second ..read more

You Do Not Receive Our Testimony John 3:11-17 (New Revised Standard Version) Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his ..read more

Standing with Eve In the summer of 2020, life as I knew it ceased to exist. I confess to being somewhat slow to understand the magnitude of racial injustice in our country, even though I live just a few zip codes over from the city in the US with the highest rates of incarceration for Black men in the entire country. It wasn’t a problem for me, so it wasn’t a problem. (I know. I know.) When the last breaths of George Floyd were taken in agonizing slowness, watched by many in real time thanks to social media, I took my first breath of awareness. I learned that what happened to Mr. Floyd was not ..read more

Psalm 92:1-5, 12-15 It is good to give thanks to the AGELESS GOD, to sing praises to you name Most High; to declare your faithful love in the morning, and your trustworthiness by night, upon the ten strings and the harp, upon the murmurings of the lyre. For you have made me glad, WELLSPRING OF LIFE, by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy. How great are your works, WOMB OF CREATION! Your designs are so very profound. A righteous woman or man flourishes like a palm tree, and grows like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of SHE WHO IS HOLY; in the courts of our God ..read more

Psalm 104: 14-15 (NRSV) You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,     and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth,     and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine,     and bread to strengthen the human heart. Mark 19: 9-15 (NRSV) Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive ..read more

Isaiah 2:1-5 (Gafney Translation) The word that Isaiah son of Amoz envisioned about Judah and Jerusalem: And it will be in coming days, the mountain of God’s home shall be higher of the mountains, and shall be elevated beyond the hills, all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Let us go and ascend the mountain of the Holy One of Sinai, to the home of the God of Jacob [of the line of Rebekah]; that God may teach us God’s ways, and that we may walk in God’s paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Holy One from Jerusalem. God shall judge ..read more