• Bible Studies

    Micah 6:6-16

    You may be old enough to remember the song “We May Never Pass This Way Again” by Seals and Crofts. While it was not about Sunday School or the Bible it’s an accurate description of what I am thinking as I teach this passage. The last time I taught Micah was 22 years ago – so do the math. While some of the fundamental values of the Christian life are in this text we rarely get around to looking at them. Our focus is on other things – good things – but I’ve always thought this is a place I should have visited more than I have. Like James 1:27…

  • Fred's Blog

    Summer in the City

    For five years I was a teacher and principal in a small school in North Carolina. One of the traditions of each senior class was to take a trip and, of course, it was ideal if it was a cruise in the Caribbean. It was also a tradition that the senior class spent their final year raising the money for the trip. Parents could not pick up the expense so there were endless rounds of car washes and cookie sales every year. Students love cruises. One year, the seniors kept putting off their fundraising in spite of all our reminders and warnings that there would only be a trip if…

  • Fred's Blog

    Get Low

    Everyone likes a mystery, especially those about the rich. My interest was piqued while reading “A Big Bet for Change in America’s Heartland,” an article by Drew Lindsay in the “Chronicle of Philanthropy.” The article’s subject is David Gundlach, the enigmatic donor who left close to $150 million to his hometown’s community foundation in Elkhart, Indiana. I began to read articles about his life – what little that was known about it. In fact, it is less of a true mystery than it is a story of an unfinished quest in the life of a boy from a small town becoming rich after the sale of his company. This line…

  • Bible Studies

    Micah 1

    1. History: The kingdom had split between Jeroboam and Rehoboam after the death of Solomon. Ten tribes went to Jeroboam – now known as Israel or Samaria. He was the leader of the party of the people. In Solomon’s final years he used forced labor to build his magnificent monuments and the people resented him. As well, he had strayed from the faith and married women who led him into the worship of other gods. Jeroboam had created a rebellion and Solomon wanted him dead. You might say Solomon had a bumper sticker on his chariot that read: “Not Jeroboam. Not ever.” Jeroboam kept the people from going to Jerusalem…

  • Fred's Blog

    The Exotic Underclass

    Sometimes a random link on the internet takes you places you never would have discovered on your own. That’s what happened when I was reading an article by Courtney Martin, the author of “Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists.” Courtney was writing about the young people who are attracted to complex problems and social change in other countries but fall into the trap of what she calls the “reductive seduction” of being drawn to problems that are urgent, highly visible and seem readily solvable to our best and brightest. In the middle of the article she linked to an essay by C.Z. Nnaemeka, “The Unexotic Underclass.” The essay…

  • Bible Studies

    The Woman At The Well

    This morning we are going to look at one of the long conversations we find in the book of John. There is the conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3, the man born blind in chapter 9, and the final conversation on the shore with Peter in chapter 21. Then there’s this one: the woman at the well in chapter 4. All of them are unique but all of them are filled with questions from Jesus and from those with whom he is talking. It’s not parables like Luke or quick encounters like Mark but exchanges with individuals that serve to reveal something about Jesus. They are real people and not…