Preparing for Worship - Abbey Adcox.  I recently attended the Evolving Faith Live Virtual Conference along with a dozen or so Wilshire members, and the encouragement and wisdom I received continues to stretch my mind and settle into my soul. Kate Bowler, historian at...

Preparing for Worship - George Mason, senior pastor. We sometimes confuse the words hear and listen. To hear can either mean the physiological act of having sound waves bounce off our eardrums and register in our brain, or it can mean comprehension of what is heard....

Preparing for Worship - Jeff Brummel, associate minister of music/organist.  In brainstorming for today’s Preparing for Worship article, one thought kept recurring to me. Legacy. As I sat and studied the order of worship, I noticed certain moments on the page that...

Preparing for Worship - LeAnn Hampton.  How ironic that in this environment when we are asked to be socially distant, we are participating in World Communion Sunday, an event first celebrated by the Presbyterian church in 1933. Communion itself implies closeness and...

Preparing for Worship - Heather Mustain, associate pastor.  This past Sunday evening, I tuned into Nevertheless She Preached, a multi-day preaching conference celebrating the voices of women in the pulpit — a conference Wilshire proudly supports. I made it just in...

Preparing for Worship - Leanna Coyle-Carr, pastoral resident.  We sit in houses today that may not feel like home. Things like global pandemics and national tensions have a way of making even the safest places feel uncomfortable. Home is where we live and breathe and...

Preparing for Worship - Doug Haney, associate pastor.  Eric Routley was a British hymnologist and hymn writer who wrote, “Hymns are the folk songs of the people of God.” Hymns are those heart-songs that are passed from generation to generation. It doesn’t take much...

Preparing for Worship - Leigh Curl, pastoral resident.   When was the last time you got lost? Not lost in the sense of losing your way or the feeling of dread when you don’t know where you are or what you are doing, but when was the last time you lost yourself in...

Preparing for Worship - August 30 - Darren DeMent, associate pastor.  This Sunday morning in worship, we are singing one of my favorite hymns, “Be Thou My Vision.” Now I realize that saying “Be Thou My Vision” is one of my favorite hymns is akin to saying “I like...