Dear church family, It’s time for some big thanks! A few people have been working hard behind the scenes to produce an important document. It’s taken a lot of labor. Though many of you contributed, the central organizers were Jim Allardice and Cindy Gullikson, and at long last we have produced MPC’s Safe Church Policy. We’re proud to say that it was…

Dear Friends, This has been a particularly good week to be a Presbyterian in the Bay Area. We had a visit from the co-moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). What’s a moderator?  In our system of governance, the office of moderator is something like adding together the roles of a President plus a Pope, minus infallibility, and divided into two people as…

Dear friends, The summer is coming to a close, and we’re gearing up for an exciting few weeks as we begin September. What’s coming up? The Barrelhouse Jazz Band, a chance to march in Oakland Pride, and Kickoff Sunday (also known as “bring your tools to church” Sunday) all lead up to the start of our church’s fall programs, from Youth Group…

Dear friends, I’ve just landed back in the office after our youth mission trip and the accompanying recovery period of days off. What a trip it was! Fourteen youth went with me, Debbie Fallehy, and Jim Allardice. I’m still exhausted! In lieu of a written contact today, here are some pictures (worth a thousand words each, etc) that show some of the…

Dear friends, Many of us are back from the shores of Lake Tahoe where we spent a week. During that week, a lot of other things happened in the world. Our church’s national gathering, the General Assembly of the PCUSA, took some important votes. I don’t pretend to have all the news on it — I’m still catching up, but here are…

Dear friends, This week has been a busy one for the news. It’s hard to know what to say about the Supreme Court case handed down this week which everyone hastens to say is “not as bad as it seems” – the case of the baker who wouldn’t bake for a gay wedding – so I’ll focus not on the actual case…

It was an exciting honor, this past week, to get to welcome five new members and baptize five people. Neither Ben nor I had ever baptized so many people at once and it felt almost like a mass baptism. At youth group that night we got a little sidetracked talking about how the early church might have managed the mass baptisms on…

We know it’s been said that every blade of grass has an angel above it whispering “grow! grow!” but in the lovely month of May, with things bursting into life on all sides, those angels’ whispers are often bold enough that one might almost hear them without the aid of imagination. It’s growing time! And the soft words of divine encouragement weave…

Dear friends, I’m back from both Tahoe retreats — the Youth Group “healthy relationships” weekend, and my final week with the Company of New Pastors, both of which were held at the beautiful Zephyr Point Presbyterian Conference Center. I appreciated the snow and the cold, the sunshine and the rocks and the sight of our young polar bear boys swimming. I loved…

Dear friends, Happy Easter! Here we are celebrating the Mystery of Easter, and I’ll remind anyone who says they “missed Easter” by being out of town on April 1st that Easter is a season, not a day, and that it lasts all the way until Pentecost, mid-May. So there will be plenty of opportunities to celebrate together, even if you didn’t hear…