Wake up call…

Grace & Peace, Y’all,  (be forewarned…I get a little “preachy” in this one) Come cold, come rain, come gray skies…it cannot stop the warming embrace of our Creator from gathering us together on Wed! Even in the nasty weather, the line at 11:30 was out of the kitchen door!  Folks were standing in the rain [...]

At Haywood Street…we PRAISE…

This past Wed, we danced off our turkey, shouted “Praise God”, and laughed with the joy of being a broken and beautiful family of the One who created us all – in the dining room, kitchen, and in the Sanctuary. The 5th Wed of the month are usually the most unusual, we’ve found.  With disability [...]

“there are no homeless Jews”

Towards a new literalism. Not the retreads of exclusion, hierarchy, judgment and damnation, all steel frayed and without theological traction, but the infallibility of scripture that can’t be interpreted away.  From Isaiah and Amos, John and Jesus, the message is unflinching: God shows up for the poor.  And so should the Church. Said a Hobo, [...]

Question of the Week –May 25, 2011

Haywood Street’s Question of the Week. ~ May 25, 2011 ~ “What does Memorial Day mean to you?” NOTE:  Participants are asked to write their honest and anonymous response on a piece of paper and leave on the lunch table or put in the offering basket.  Answers below are typed exactly as they appear on [...]

Question of the Week. May 18, 2011

Haywood Street’s Question of the Week. ~ May 18, 2011 ~ “If you could meet anyone in the world, alive or dead, who would it be and why?” NOTE: Participants are asked to write their honest and anonymous response on a piece of paper and leave on the lunch table or put in the offering [...]

HOMELESS PLEASE HELP…

I was struggling with a heavy container of silverware, preparing for another Wednesday meal at Haywood Street, when the hand-made sign caught my eye. HOMELESS PLEASE HELP. My first thoughts were of sympathy for the person who must have accidentally left the one thing that might get them noticed on the side of the road. [...]

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. prayer breakfast invocation

1/15/2011, Grove Park Inn “Beloved Community,” sisters of justice and brothers of grace, let us pray. Because of our contented vista on the mountaintop, our opulent altitude above the clouds O’ Lord, we so often pose before you brandishing the dull edges of complacency, lauding the laurels of yesterday’s half attempt. Yet, on mornings like [...]

“The Church has A.I.D.S.”

2010 Western North Carolina A.I.D.S. Project awareness walk speech Blood transfusions, bodily fluids, sexual orientation, female genital mutilation, intravenous drug use, condoms and intercourse are gritty realities silenced in the Sunday morning lexicon, believed only dealt with beyond the pulpit.  But the forced hush must stop.  And as a United Methodist minister, my spoken task [...]

Expectation, longing, hope…

In the season of Advent, we talk of anticipation, expectation, longing, and hope.  As a kid, I remember intense anticipation of Christmas Eve, waiting patiently (or not so patiently) for Santa to sneak his way into our home.  As a college student, the beginning of Advent marked the beginning of the end of a semester—papers [...]

My Journey at the Downtown Welcome Table…

My journey at the Downtown Welcome Table began when my neighbor, Shelly Arnold, asked if I might be interested in volunteering to help with a community meal downtown.  I believed this invitation was an answer to prayer, and definitely the Holy Spirit at work in my heart.  I had been feeling a tug, a restlessness, [...]

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