News from the Director of Religious Education

Spoils is an interesting term of art. As a plural noun (as opposed to a conjugated verb), its synonyms resonate – plunder, loot, swag, haul, pickings, booty, reward. The last, reward, is particularly revealing, as [...]

When I was a child, I had a tree friend. She was a great, grand willow who grew on the west bank of the Des Plaines River in Libertyville, where I grew up. Someone, I’m [...]

“Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can!” Maude, Harold and Maude   I didn’t really want to go to college. Though I was in moments excited, I [...]

A quiet but heartfelt thanks here to all of you who have reached out to me so generously this week to say you were touched by my sermon last Sunday about rebuilding our denomination’s broken [...]

Lately I’ve found myself in several different conversations where folks have begged off of coming to church because they don’t believe in “organized religion.” I’ve laughed and shrugged this off with a line I’ve heard [...]

  “There is a rewarding, even exhilarating, role for each of us in making democracy real.”           ~Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen, Daring Democracy   When I think back to Barack Obama’s historic election [...]