if you are like me, you spend a lot of your life paying attention to what’s right in front of you—taking care of your responsibilities, juggling your various commitments, trying to find a little time for yourself now and then. Maybe it’s only occasionally that you step back and look at the big picture and wonder, “Where am I going? Am I living my life the way I want to? The way I ought to?”

Does the idea of faith warm your heart, or leave you cold? Faith is one of those things that gets spoken of a lot, but how often do we explore what it really means?

You can, step by step, build a good life – a life of faith. But it doesn’t just happen by wishful thinking. It takes attention, and time, and effort.

Here in this church, we believe everyone has the power to bless, and that’s what I want to talk to you about today. We believe in what’s called “the priesthood of all believers,” that each person has a direct link to the Holy…

Back in my twenties, I lived in Washington, DC. Despite what some politicians say about lazy bureaucrats, I found Washington to be a city filled with hard-working people. Even at a party, it seemed the primary conversation was about work—how hard people were working, and how busy they were. One summer I went away on vacation, and when I came back, I was feeling happy and relaxed.

On Sunday morning three weeks ago, my wife Tracey and I went to church in Scotland. It was our last full day in that lovely green country that we had been wandering around for two weeks. We went to Elgin Cathedral, a church with no roof and with grass for a floor, because it had fallen into ruin during the Reformation, five hundred years ago. There was no service, and there hadn’t been one there for a long time, but it felt like church as we moved quietly through that space.