It is the beginning of another school year in Tallahassee. It’s a time of promise and expectation. Walking through the first “Market Wednesday” on campus, bumping into organization after organization trying to get members – I felt that promise and expectation. There are 6,000 new students on campus. They feel it. They have been accepted…

This is based on a short talk that our own Professor Henry Fuelberg gave us last week after worship.  Pastor has been saying,  The students are coming!  The students are coming! He is like our very own Paul Revere—but without a horse, and not telling us at midnight. What’s the big deal? And why is Fuelberg talking…

Put away those books on Millennials (or Gen Y, or Mosaics, or whatever generational term you have been taught to call people that were born from the late 80’s to the early 2000’s). It is time to pick up a book on Gen Z (or Homelanders, or Pluralists, iGeneration, or whatever generational term you have…

The predominant narrative in the Winters family is Christ’s narrative, however, our secondary narrative seems to be shifting. We had been a “Sofia the First” household, but we are steadily becoming a “Care Bears/Care Bear Cousins” household.  I appreciated Sofia, but I actually like the Care Bears. I’m talking about the new Care Bears that…

My Aunt Elsie was our family’s amateur genealogist. Every time we visited Aunt Elsie (who was actually Great Aunt Elsie), she would impress upon me new stories and things that she had learned about our Winters side of the family. She would display pictures and tell stories of the heroes and outlaws of our family…

Many of you know or have heard that I have cut my hair. It’s to the point now that if you haven’t seen my haircut I know that we haven’t been interacting that much. It’s a new look for me. This week I got another “new look” in that I updated my glasses. The update…

Every year I take a series of days away from the office (for the most part) in order to participate in what I have called “reflection days”. I started this in 2009, at the celebration of my 2nd year of ministry, and I have done it around the anniversary of my ordination and installation at…

We will be starting a new sermon series this Sunday called “In One Body”. The title comes from a line in Ephesians 2, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one…

Lonnie sat at the bar, his face and hands blackened with soot and grease. His drink was Kessler (an American blend whiskey) and coke, in a short glass, so that the ratio of Kessler to Coke was more 50/50 than it was in a highball which would have been more like 30/70. At last call,…

I just got back from serving at the District Convention of the Florida Georgia District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. My role at this was not only as pastoral delegate (voter) but also as Secretary of the District, an elected position which I was elected to again. Along with our lay (non-church worker) delegate,…