For this morning’s prelude, the Wilshire Winds plays an excerpt from “The Promise of Living,” a piece American composer Aaron Copland wrote for his opera, The Tender Land. The opera tells the story of a Midwest farm family in the 1930s during the spring harvest. The...
Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton. On this Father’s Day, who do you thank God for? It may very well be your father, but it also might be a mother, teacher, friend, neighbor, colleague, pastor or someone who was there just at the right time. My list gets pretty long...
Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton. In worship this morning the Wilshire Winds play an arrangement of “Abide With Me” that offers an unusual twist on the familiar tune. At the beginning and throughout, listen and you’ll hear the trumpet notes of “Last Call,” which...
Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton. Today in worship we hear a very strong theme of helping others and being the hands and feet of Christ on earth. It is a foundational message of our faith. But I wonder, too, if it doesn’t beg the question: Have we been good...
Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton. So, how are you feeling today — about your life, about your family, about the world? If you’re like me, you probably have a lot on your mind. If you’re like the characters in last week’s Faith in 3D production of To Whom it...
Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton. It’s really quite remarkable: this thing we do together called church, this place we call Wilshire. For almost two years we’ve stuck together through a pandemic that has battered and shattered many organizations and institutions....
Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton, Wilshire member. It’s hard to believe it’s May already. Winter seemed longer than usual, what with the pandemic and that crazy freeze in late February that seemed to leave all of nature in shock. Even now, we’re waiting and...
Who knew that in the heat of July we’d be experiencing what we always anticipate and plan for during the high holy days of the Christian faith: the waiting of Advent and the darkness of Lent. We’re familiar with “Christmas in July,” but now Easter too? We currently...
At the dinner table recently I asked our parents if they had a sense that they were living in historic times during the Great Depression and World War II, and if so, do they feel that same way now during the pandemic? I told them I was asking because my own belief is...
This Sunday, April 19, is the Second Sunday of Easter on the liturgical calendar, and I would have found that peculiar as a child when we didn’t follow such calendars and Easter was a one-day event. Year after year we drove deep down into Southeast Texas to spend the...