Sometimes I genuinely wonder what people actually hear when I preach. Not what I say . Not what I carefully pray over, study, write, revise, and deliver. What people hear . Do they hear one word they don’t like and then mentally check out for the remaining fifteen minutes? Do they grab onto a phrase, assume they know where I’m going, and stop listening before I even get there? I suspect that happens more often than we’d like to admit. Last week, I was chatting with a congrega

Baptism is not something we outgrow. It is something we grow into. So may we remember who we are: beloved, claimed, and called. And may we live our “I do” not only in words, but in witness—until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.