The Practicing Church

04/03/2026

Join us for Easter!!!
Gathering 10a | Easter Egg Hunt 11:45a | Brunch 12p
This is our high holiday! The celebration of celebrations! The feast of feasts! We will celebrate that there is hope in the midst of despair, life after death, and that the darkness gives way to the dawn! So get on your dancing shoes and come on out for an Easter paaaartaaaay!!! We will worship together, play together and eat together. Mimosas, spiral ham and scalloped potatoes are on the menu! Everyone is welcome!

02/06/2026

These days, I am holding both fire and tiredness in my bones. And I know many of you are feeling the same. These are not normal times. We are being summoned by a higher call of love to show up for our neighbors. And the call is urgent.

This is the call I heard in Minnesota as I witnessed both the trauma of state terror in an occupied city alongside the soulforce of love of neighbor that was being lived out in ways I have never seen before. It felt like a war zone—lockdowns, abductions, closed businesses, racial profiling, citizens kidnapped, children traumatized, doors broken in, car windows shattered, abandoned vehicles in the street, neighbors hiding, patrols, tear gas, and underground systems of care. This call that echoes here on the ground in Shoreline—ICE reports and kidnappings, citizens who suddenly feel unsafe in their own homes, neighbors being subjected to illegal searches. And then another shooting in the street as ICE agents murdered Alex Pretti in cold blood. Lord, have mercy.

I was sitting on the tarmac on a delayed flight when I saw the news, and it hit especially hard. Because I now held the faces of so many Minnesota leaders who were courageously loving their neighbors amid immense suffering and oppression. This is not business as usual. Everyone has a part. They are organizing care, protecting schools and neighbors, delivering groceries, coordinating rides, sharing resources and legal help, raising funds for mutual aid, peacefully protesting, and writing songs of resistance.

And they are tired...bone tired...and yet they keep singing.

The songs will stay with me.

Songs we sang as over 1,000 faith leaders (from Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and other traditions) marched with the crowd of 75,000 who showed up in subzero temperatures for a general strike and walkout that day.

Songs that filled our hearts with courage and resolve as we participated in direct actions at the airport, detention center, and Target store, calling for action to accompany fasting and prayer and moral clarity for our leaders.

Songs that are birthing a movement of resistance.

These are the songs we sang as we gathered last Sunday in my living room to connect and organize care and resistance here on the ground, block by block.

Songs that fill us with hope and strength, palpable in the room as we realize the truth of these words...

We will not underestimate our power any longer—
we know that together, we are strong
Like drops of water shape the rocks,
as they rush down the falls,
we know that together, we are strong
(Our Power, Rena Branson)

Songs that have long been a source of strength, hope, and resistance for our Black neighbors. February is Black History Month, and we have much to learn from our black siblings and immigrant neighbors who have long been in this fight for liberation amid state terror and violence.

Songs that taught me so much in Minnesota, as I witnessed firsthand the power of soul force. Soul force is a method of nonviolent resistance inspired by the life of Jesus and developed and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. And I believe soul force is needed in this moment.

This image above (Soul Force: Official Journal of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, vol. 4, no. 5, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture) is provocative and, for me, encapsulates the intersection of empire and the powerful invitation of the cross to wield the soul force of love against the physical force of the state.

“Soul force is where the Spirit of God and our human resilience meet. The Spirit doesn’t override our will, nor does it bypass our humanity. The Spirit works in concert and collaboration with our ingenuity, gifts and grit. Soul force is a power that emerges when we align with the Spirit of truth, love, and liberation. Soul force is an awakening to the realization that we have a creative force within us, because we all bear the divine imprint of the Creator. But so rarely do we tap into this power. Soul force is an inner alignment with truth, a fortified internal strength that creates the capacity for courage and change in the face of great adversity. It is a commitment to integrity, truth, love, nonviolence, and community that leads to personal and social transformation" [Graham-Washington & Casselberry, Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community & Change].

So yes, I am tired to the bone, but I will keep singing.

Dear friends, I know you are tired too. It is exhausting to have a beating heart these days.

Please keep singing too!

For resilience is now what is being called forth, for action transforms our fear into courage.

So let us rest our bodies and renew our souls in all the ways we know how. Yet let us also resolve to love one another with the soul force of Jesus' enemy love. Let it be a fire burning in our bones for justice and liberation— to love our neighbor, to offer sustenance to the hungry, to care for those who are sick, to visit the prisoner, and to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25).

For we know that together we are strong.

01/23/2026

There has been a call for clergy and faith leaders to go and be a witness in Minneapolis this week.

I answered the call out of a deep conviction that we must resist the evil unleashed on Minneapolis and stand in solidarity with our neighbors who are being targeted once again by blatant racism and state terror.

What I have witnessed here on the ground is both immensely heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful. The city is under siege of occupation forces who have been empowered to terrorize the streets with brutal violence. This is not business as usual. Everyone is affected and experiencing collective trauma.

At the same time, I have been so incredibly inspired by the love of neighbor being embodied here, and the power and scale of resistance in solidarity and community. The best thing we can do is to know our neighbors and care for one another.

I ask for your prayers today. This is a battle on many fronts, but it is a deeply spiritual one. Pray for safety but also pray that our resistance will inspire moral courage in the leaders of our nation.

I believe this is a moment where we are called to rise up.

01/20/2026

In the grief, outrage, and disorientation of our time, we are searching for a way to survive the daily onslaught of bad news, just a way to get through.

Yet Jesus offers us a way…a way of love, solidarity, non-violent resistance, and peace.

In the earliest chapters of the church, followers of Jesus were called The Way. Their neighbors recognized them as people who walked a different path—a way of being human together that stood out amid the poverty, violence, and oppression of empire.

You see, Jesus didn’t primarily ask people to agree with him. He went around saying something far more demanding and far more beautiful: “Follow me.” But what did that mean then—and what does it mean now? Jesus wasn't inviting them into a religion, a political bloc, or a set of beliefs to affirm, but rather a way of life.

Join us as we seek to orient our everyday lives around a way of love that heals us all.

12/28/2025

11/29/2025

Join us this Sunday, Nov 30th, for the first Sunday of Advent with Advent candle lighting, community stories, and an Advent devotional for the season!

Luke’s Gospel begins the story of Jesus with this opening line: “In the time of Herod…” This detail may seem minor to modern readers; however, it reveals layers of information about the fearful world Jesus entered, one filled with rampant oppression, economic disparity, uncertainty, and instability. A world not so unlike our own. And yet, throughout the stories of Christ’s birth, we hear the whispers of angels delivering a surprising message: “Do not fear.” When Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the magi are each called into God’s redemptive story, they do not deny their fears—they move through them. They ask questions, hold fast to courage, trust in good news, and say, “Here I am, Lord.” When we find ourselves in fearful times, can we acknowledge our fears while also insisting on hope?

As we journey through this season, may our hope become gritty and resilient. May we remember: hope that trembles is still hope. This season, let us insist on hope and trust that good news is greater than fear.
27s

10/14/2025

Writing a little of my story and my journey into the wilderness of the neighborhood. It is a story of the foolish and audacious yes—a glorious and daunting tale of saying yes to what the Spirit is birthing here in our community and in communities all across the globe. It comes with a warning. This journey is not for the faint of heart. Yet I believe with my whole heart that this is what the Spirit is up to today. Beckoning us to leave behind what is familiar, the Spirit of God invites us to cross the threshold into the wilderness. For amid all the shaking and turbulence of society and church today, the Spirit is wooing the church out of her captivity—to leave behind what is dead, lifeless, co-opted, and compromised to step into newness.

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland. – Isaiah 43:19

We are invited to move from the rampant fragmentation of our individualistic and consumer culture to authentic community, faithful presence, and embodied faith—letting go of our small, individual stories to be invited into a much larger story that is so compelling, it is worth giving our lives to.

Join The Commons Revival.

Journey into the Wilderness of the Neighborhood

09/18/2025

The Shift from “I” to “WE”
I have been sensing the Spirit’s invitation to be family with one another and our neighbor. “The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of family too small” (attributed to Mother Teresa). This is the new family that Jesus called his disciples to —that moved beyond the loyalty of family and tribe to include the stranger, the foreigner, and the outsider. If we are to follow the revolutionary way of Jesus, our sense of family must move far beyond our own immediate families, our circles of friendships with those who look and think like us, and far beyond our own comfort. How do we move beyond imagining to enacting solidarity?

Solidarity is the movement from “I” to “WE.” This is a significant shift in our way of being amid a fiercely individualistic culture. It doesn’t mean that we neglect ourselves. It means we begin to see that our well-being is tied to the well-being of others. It is acknowledging that we have a responsibility beyond taking care of ourselves; we have a responsibility to our neighbors. This is the greatest commandment—to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Solidarity happens when we understand that our flourishing is tied up with our neighbors’ flourishing.

“We must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The myth of individualism pits our own good against working for the good of others. It pits our own healing and formation against joining God’s work in the world. They are not diametrically opposed but rather inextricably related.

We heal together.

08/31/2025

W e a r e f a m i l y.

This is a reason to celebrate amid a world of deep fragmentation. As the prophets, Sister Sledge, herald, "We are family....Get up, everybody, and sing!" Perhaps both the good and bad news is this—we are living in a time where the myth of individualism is exposed for the heinous lie that it is.

You see, if the powers can keep us apart—isolated, divided, alone, self-absorbed, and disempowered, they win. We remain consumers captive to the exploitive and violent systems of greed and oppression.

Yet if we remember that we are family, that we belong to one another... If we remember that we are all "tied together...caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny" (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)...if we remember that our flourishing is tied up together....

Then and only then is there hope in the midst of despair, and joy found even in the deepest sorrow. There is a reason to celebrate! For we are in this together. When the community comes together to offer their gifts, big or small, there is always enough.

This is why we are so excited to regather this Sunday, August 31st, at 10 am to worship together as family.

We belong to God and to one another in a community of radical belonging that overflows in love of neighbor.

07/09/2025

Join us for an important discussion with Native American author and activist Mark Charles on the Doctrine of Discovery as historical context for the chaotic political environment, deep social divides, polarizing religious theologies, and chronic health challenges that our society faces today. Co-author of "Unsettling Truths - The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery," Mark Charles' message could not be more important today for those trying to find a way of true peace and conciliation.

"Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created." - a quote used by Georges Erasmus, Dene Nation, co-chair of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Canada)

Join us to explore our historical context amid the chaotic political environment, deep social divides, and polarizing religious ideologies.

05/01/2025

What does it mean to be faithfully present?
Faithful. Here. Now.
In this tumultuous time. On this sacred ground.
Apartment dwellers, homeowners, and those who long for home
Whether we live with a crowd or alone
Whether we dream in Spanish, Arabic, Tigrinya, or English
We all dream a dream of shalom.

It’s been eight years of sowing.
Sowing seeds and sewing together
That which has been torn apart.

Sowing seeds of connection around the table
As we gather biweekly for dinners with neighbors
We share bread and wine, stories and laughter
As babies are jostled by stand-in aunties, toddlers play
Parents chug down hot plates of food
Basking in the glory of a free lap and a home-cooked meal.
Our faces fresh and wrinkled, hopeful and pained
We are being woven together around the candlelight
Into family when family is far away.

Sowing seeds of communion around the eucharist table
As we gather weekly to sing songs of hope, pray prayers,
and rehearse our Story .
We arrive here on foot, bicycle, in buses and cars
Hungry for presence, to know love with skin on,
To see Christ embodied.
Here and now, in us
To learn the way of Jesus, the Human One,
Who embodied a love that is healing the world
Making us human again.

Yet sowing means dying.
For the seed must be buried in the darkness of the ground
in order to rise again.
Faithful presence has meant a thousand deaths
Death to self, ego, the shiny, big stories of success
Death to comfort, individualism, and consumption
Death to doing what I want when I want
Death to the green grass of another place
Death to distance from suffering
Death to moving on when it gets hard.

Sowing seeds of faithful presence
Looks like the smallness of picking up trash in the neighborhood,
Rummage sales to raise money for unhoused neighbors,
Street parties, city hall meetings, protests
Being interrupted and inconvenienced,
To make a meal, offer comfort, give someone a ride
Listening deeply and sitting with housemates and neighbors
In the hard stuff of wakes, conflict, postpartum, and cancer diagnosis.
There are no big miracles here. Just many small miracles.

Sowing means rising.
For in time, if we do not grow weary, we will reap a harvest.
Sewing means mending as we practice resurrection.
Healing tattered fragments of hurts and resentments, divides and biases
God the seamstress that sews us back together
Humanizes the dehumanized, honors the desecrated
Our lives woven together, our voices harmonize,
And our hearts beat as one
We are learning what it means to be a Christian in the dirt.

Join us Sundays @ 10 am — thepracticingchurch.org.