The Roofless Church

Category: Reframing

  • Artists Turn Chaos Into Culture

    Artists Turn Chaos Into Culture

    When I was six years old my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her I wanted paint, a canvas, and an easel because I wanted to be an artist. Her response was that artists don’t make money. Instead she bought me a typewriter and told me I was going to…

  • Harriet’s Daughters: The Legacy of the #StrongBlackWoman

    Harriet’s Daughters: The Legacy of the #StrongBlackWoman

    In theaters right now, there is a biopic based on some aspects of the life of Harriet Tubman. As a character in history, Harriet Tubman has always held a special place in my heart because she refused to be a slave. And according to legend, she refused to let anyone who said they wanted to…

  • There is No Competition

    There is No Competition

    I might be going through a midlife crisis (MLC). A word that etymologically means, “the point at which change must come, for better or worse.” I remember that whenever I heard about MLCs growing up, I thought that whatever it was, it would never happen to me because the way MLCs are typically characterized, it…

  • Breaking Through Before Breaking Free

    As I prepared my sermon for this Palm Sunday, I felt this sinking feeling. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. The truth is I’ve never been a holidays person. Even as a child I asked, “Do we have to do this Christmas thing every year. Actually, I get anxious during almost every…

  • Do Not Resist Evil?

    Do Not Resist Evil?

    “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak…

  • “LieVersity” and “In-True-Sion”: What People Aren’t Saying About Why Diversity Programs Fail

    I am a minister now largely because working as a consultant on a “Diversity Recruiting” Program for a large multi-national company frustrated me so deeply that I enrolled into seminary just to see if I could learn what it would take for a person or organization to have a true conversion experience. Most people who…

  • The Privilege of Fearing God

    Fear and God.  For a long time those two words seemed not to go together for me. After all, in the book of 1 John we are told “God is Love” and despite how we tend to think of hate as love’s opposite, anyone who has ever loved knows that is inaccurate.  Fear is actually…

  • Where Isn’t God?

    Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls— Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in…

  • Coming Out of the Dark…

    Somewhere in time there is a part of me that I visit frequently.  He is in a dark room and he feels alone.  He is living a lie.  He believes that he is separate from God and from everything else in life–the consummate individual.  Even though he knows that he can get up and walk…

  • Does God Care If I Lost My Keys?

    “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to…