The Accidental Lay Pastor
In April of 2023, my wife and I started attending St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Port Jervis, NY. This is an ELCA church, which means that, along with the PC(USA), RCA, Episcopal, and several other churches, we believe in pretty socially liberal principles, and were called by our faith to follow these. Before this, we had gone to New Life Presbyterian Church in Roseville, MN when we lived there.
Anyhow, about nine months into our time at St. Peter’s we lost our pastor to the church’s financial circumstances. Drawing on my time at New Life, and the tutelage of some friends of mine who are ministers, I somehow wound up preaching every other Sunday. I’ve been a lecturer of sorts for a while. I have taught at the university, high school, and community college levels, as well as giving seminars and workshops both in academia and in other spaces. This is the first time, however, that I’ve ever spoken in this way routinely on religion, or had to figure out a new thing to say about it every other week. Since early 2024, I’ve been leading services every second and fourth Sunday of the month, and writing the message, or sermon, for each one.
Some of the sermons come quickly to me, while others take over a week (or more) to write a bit at a time. Some of them are revisions of sermons that I’ve given in the past, namely at New Life. I have been scared to preach some of these sermons, but the congregation at St. Peter’s has been extremely supportive.
From “A Straight White Guy’s Guide to Pride Month” to “I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS HAS TO BE SAID” to “It All Burned Down”, my intention is to capture the attention of the congregation, and to give them something to think about that relates the words of a dusty old tome that we call The Bible to what we’re living day to day. This will then be an archive of those sermons, and I’ll also link to any videos there are of me preaching them.