The language of our denomination’s Book or Order is altogether too dry in describing what happens:

The church nurtures those baptized as children and calls them to make public their personal profession of faith and their acceptance of responsibility in the life of the church. When these persons are ready, they shall be examined by the session.  After the session has received them as active members they shall be presented to the congregation during a service of public worship. In that service the church shall confirm them in their baptismal identity. They shall reaffirm the vows taken at Baptism. Continue reading →

It’s a clever fluff piece on the MSN website.  “12 Things Every Parent Does But Won’t Tell Their Kids.”  You may have seen it. It’s being reposted on social media and a number of parents have posted their “scores” on their homepages.

Some of the twelve seem innocent enough and I’ll plead guilty. Yes, I have “skipped” a page or four in the bedtime book to speed things along. Might we have conveniently lost an annoying toy?  Well, something like that. But at some point some items on the list seem to cross the line from innocent enough to a breach of the parental responsibility to nurture human decency, integrity, and honesty.  Why lie about the ice cream store being closed when you can tell the truth? We’re not going to the ice cream store today. Continue reading →

Many of you know that this week LPC has been hosting four members of Igreja Presbiteriana no Jardim América, a Presbyterian Church in Brazil. The purpose of the trip – as with a similar trip Becky, Marcos Ortega, and I took in September, 2013, is to continue a process of discernment as to whether God might be calling us to some form of mission partnership – working together for common good and in a common cause.  We know that the common cause has something to do with the children and young people of the favela, or slum, at the edge of which the church  is located. We know that is has to do with sharing the Gospel in word and deed. We know that among those things that might contribute to the common good is praying together, studying together, working together; loving one another as a sign to the whole world that we are his humble disciples. Continue reading →

“Se Deus quiser,” our friend Nilcéia wrote in anticipation of her arrival in Philadelphia tomorrow as part of the team of four Brazilians who will be visiting LPC. “Se Deus quiser,” literally “If God desires or wants.”  We say, “Lord willing.” It is an idiom in both Portuguese and English. It is also a theological statement. Writing of our tendency to be overconfident in our own plans and designs, James says, “…you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'” Our plans and designs are always subject to the will of our sovereign and gracious God.

So what might Deus quiser in this ten-day visit to LPC by four members of IPJA, the Presbyterian Church in the Garden of America neighborhood of Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third largest city?

The story begins in June of 1991. I was a student at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. The Dean of Students called. Would Becky and I be willing to serve as student shepherds for an international family soon to arrive from Brazil? Their two young daughters were close in age to our two daughters. The Dean thought it might be a good match. Little did she know. Robson and Juliane became life-long friends. Continue reading →

It was the perfect sound bite for the culture wars and some of the partisans in the trenches seized upon it immediately and loaded their muskets full of it and fired gleefully at the enemy lines across the way. Professor: If You Read To Your Kids, You’re ‘Unfairly Disadvantaging’ Others

An obscure philosophy professor was interviewed on an obscure Australian radio program, The Philosopher’s Zone, and somebody found the quotes, and in a world where viral is good, the news went viral.

Adam Swift, the interviewed professor, and his colleagues have studied families and social inequality and have discovered that children from healthy families do better in life than children from less healthy families. Specifically, they discovered that nothing advantages one child over another more than positive interaction with parents. Continue reading →