Entries by Kevin Ireland

Look Up This Lent

Dear Faith Family, One of the gifts of being back in Kansas is the sky. There is something about a prairie sunset, the horizon set ablaze in orange, red, and purple, that invites us to pause and look up. Creation has a way of preaching, if we are paying attention. This week offered an added […]

Caring for Christ

Luke 7:36-50, Matthew 25:35-40 I did not invite him to honor him. Let’s be clear about that. I invited him because people were talking. You couldn’t walk through Capernaum without hearing his name. They said he healed a centurion’s servant, a Roman, and not even by touching him, just by speaking. Then word came from […]

Stardust

Dear Beloved — made from stardust, On Ash Wednesday morning I had the privilege of marking foreheads with ashes at the church coffee bar — preschool teachers hurrying between classrooms, parents wrangling children, members stopping on their way to work. One by one I traced the cross and spoke the ancient words: “You are a […]

Persistent Resistance

Persistent Resistance Matthew 17:1-9, Ephesians 6:10-20 Think for a moment about a mountaintop experience in your own life. Maybe it really was on a mountain, standing at the summit after a long climb, the air thinner and the horizon wider than you imagined. Or maybe it was not a mountain at all. Maybe it was […]

Water, Work, and Wonder

John 2:1-11, Isaiah 25:1-8 We had already made the trip down to the well more times than I could count. Back and forth. Back and forth. The wedding had been going for days, with laughter, music, and dancing in the courtyard. Then the whisper started moving through the servants before anyone else knew. They were […]