Boat, Bird, BowHas audio
This Sunday we’re embarking on hearing scriptures from the Narrative Lectionary during worship. All Fall we’ll sit with texts from the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and then beginning at Christmas into the spring we’ll...
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This Sunday we’re embarking on hearing scriptures from the Narrative Lectionary during worship. All Fall we’ll sit with texts from the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and then beginning at Christmas into the spring we’ll...
Have I ever told y'all about the time I was hiking and came across a burning bush that started talking to me? The bush told me that it was God and that I was chosen...
[This sermon was preached on our 2026 Safe Church Sunday - when we also had a training for all volunteers with kids & youth. As Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship - we are committed to being...
One of my favorite books, that I read again and again a long time ago… and a book that I have read again and again dozens of times in the last year and a half…...
There is a natural yearning, a human tendency towards trying to find the commonality, the thing we all share. We say, things like, “We’re all the same on the inside.” “Everybody’s just doing the best...
Last week, on two flights traveling back home to North Carolina, depending on your perspective I was gifted or cursed with two talkative seatmates. I had just left the grizzly country of Montana - and...
In the library in the middle-school where I went…. if you had finished your required reading, they had this section of magazines you could peruse on all sorts of topics like science, news, art, and...
Either/or binaries help us make sense of life. Wheat & weeds. Good seeds and bad seeds. A landowner and his enemy. A barn where the wheat will be gathered into… and a fire, where the...
Jesus uses earthy images in pithy, pointed, sometimes confusing parables that both illuminate and obscure what the kingdom of God is like. Just in Matthew’s 13th chapter he speaks of soil and seeds and weeds...
Ben spent last week at Camp Friedenswald in Michigan, a Mennonite camp supported by our conference, where he was the camp pastor for the pre-junior week. Ben draws on his camp experience to reflect on...
Resting, refraining, ceasing to do work on the Sabbath – helps the community delight in the gift of God’s goodness that might otherwise be missed in the frenzy of constant, anxious activity. But as Jesus...
We are spending four-week in our worship services using on the theme "Rise Up! Take Courage," which is also the biennial theme for our conference - Central District Conference. Congregations have been invited to use...
Pastor Ben Rudeen Kreider was ordained as a minister in Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA on Sunday, May 17, 2026. Brian Bolton, pastor of Shalom Mennonite Congregation in Harrisonburg and Ben's mentor during...
Imagine, you standing in front of Duke Chapel. You just finished seeing all the stained glass, someone was playing the organ inside, and you are looking at the sculpture of John Wesley. You feel a...
Next Sunday, we will be remembering loved ones who have died - and we will be using alternate texts from the lectionary for All Saints Day. And so today - while I will just be...
There was a certain woman in a church I was once a part of. Every single Sunday, during every prayer and sharing time, when the microphone was passed around this woman would stand up and...
It would be enough if all we take from our gospel text today is a recognition of the goodness of gratitude. It would be enough if the only moment that lingers with us from this...
The lectionary this fall has given us the gift or misfortune of spending some time with the prophet Jeremiah of 8th century ancient Judah. Jeremiah is not an easy prophet to hang out with because...
In our worship service on Sunday, September 14 - through song, prayer, and word - we made space to commit ourselves to being a church that practices beloved community, following Jesus who welcomed children and...
It’s hard to look away from that spinning, centered mass of clay. Watching a skilled potter at work is mesmerizing. The kick, kick, kick, of the foot maintains the wheel's rhythm, propelling a vase or...
Sometime in the period of dizzying self-awareness of all that stepping into responsibility might mean and all the swirling feelings of growth and possibility and shame and the desire to belong in this complicated world....
I grew up in extended family structures where there would be lots of cooks in the kitchen. When food was being made and served and eaten people would comment on it and say things like,...
As a kid at church, I would sit in the pew on the north side of the sanctuary a few rows back and I would take out my bulletin. And during the sermon I would...
A few years back - the AC in our car went out in the midst of a sweltering summer. The problem confounded the multiple mechanics we took it to in New Jersey. And after an...
The last time I did the sermon at church, I was about 13 years old sharing on MLK Sunday at Germantown Mennonite. I remember talking about how lucky I felt to have an ethnically diverse...
I had the awesome privilege of a grand adventure this past May. For 16 days, I joined 8 Mennonites from Winnipeg and we traveled across Holland and ventured into Belgium. The journey was a pilgrimage...
Waiting well is one of the hardest things we are called to do as humans. Maybe you’re in a conversation with a friend or family member. But it’s so hard to actually listen to them...
A novel based on the life of the Italian saint, lover of the poor and friend of creation, St. Francis, includes this story: One day, Francis was walking down the road, singing a song to...
Last year - 2024 - was the hottest year ever recorded. And the top ten hottest years ever recorded have all been in the past ten years. We have lived through a decade of record-breaking heat -...
I’m continuing to preach from the book of Revelation. The Revelation or Apocalypse of John, is an unveiling, an unmasking of the truth of who God is and what God is doing to redeem the...