Steve’s Word

The Worship Service Part 1

This week, I begin a three-part column on the worship service. I will comment on various components of our worship services, lifting up the discipline of silence as a key tool to our experience of God. Worship is first and foremost about God. When the Christian community gathers to worship each Sunday morning at Grace Presbyterian Church, we are to give God our best in praise, adoration, and reverence. God is God. We are God’s creation.

Silence ...

My friends, the Season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Maundy Thursday. It’s a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection at Easter. During Lent, we seek the Lord in prayer by reading Biblical texts; we serve by giving alms; and we practice self-control through fasting. We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true ...

My friends, the Season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Join us for Ashes and Communion, “on the go”, near the Coffee Bar by the Great Room from 7:00am-8:30am. A traditional service of Ashes and Communion will be held in the Sanctuary that evening at 7:00 pm.

As I continue to reflect on the Annual Meeting last Sunday, I’m taken by the joy and fellowship that occurred around tables. And thanks to Chris Alexander and her team for ...

My theme verse for all forty-three years of my ministry as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is Philippians 1:3-6:

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your  sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion ...

Like many Christian pastors, ministers, bloggers, authors, podcasters, and congregants, I believe that the Church must be more courageous. Human rights and dignity are at stake. And the Church is not the building. The Church is the millions of Christians that make up the body of Christ. Yes, Christians are Republican, Democrat, and Independent in party affiliation. But the mark of a Christian is not a particular party platform. The mark of a Christian is the fruit of the Holy ...