Over the years we have been able to predict with some accuracy who is likely to show up in our lobby on any given Sunday. We always talk about Timonium Tim, the name we’ve given to the quintessentially unchurched guy and his family in our community. We plan every aspect of our weekend experience around […]
This is the third and final installment of blogs dedicated to our groundbreaking events. Last week, I wrote about our formal dedication liturgy with the Most Rev. William Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore. It was a day of great rejoicing and perfect weather. We’re hoping for a repeat on weather. This weekend is our groundbreaking celebration. […]
One of the casualties of our new construction will be our old chapel. It sits on what will eventually be our new lobby. The chapel is in no way architecturally distinguished—its only artistic distinction being the stained glass windows—which will be preserved and reused elsewhere. Mostly the chapel was used for quiet prayer and daily […]
The good news of Jesus’ resurrection was groundbreaking. The Apostles and first generation disciples carried this news out into the world and made the Church a groundbreaking movement. They led with acts of mercy, healing, and preached a message of redemption from sin and life-change. Most of all, they made disciples. That’s what this weekend […]
Our latest message series at Nativity for the Easter season, called “Groundbreaking,” has got me thinking a lot about what the Early Church did and looked like. This message, by the way, is all about how Jesus’ resurrection changed the face of history, and how deeply that resonated with the Apostles and the first Christ […]
Since Pope Francis has declared 2016 a Jubilee Year of Mercy, I’ll try at least a couple times to write about this theme over the year. Mercy is operative in every healthy and growing church, and this is a good week to bring it up since Pope John Paul II established the tradition of celebrating […]
For all of my blog followers and friends out there, I hope you had a joyous and meaningful Easter celebration with your family and church family. If you were here at Nativity, we were thrilled to welcome you, along with upwards of 7,000 others between the Triduum and Easter Sunday (as well as thousands more […]
Easter is here. So that you can have a truly incredible and worshipful experience, our teams of staff and volunteers ministers have put a lot of thought into logistics. If you regularly attend our parish, consider some of these options so that first-time or infrequent visitors, those unfamiliar with our campus and programs, will find […]
Next week begins Holy Week, the most sacred time of the year for the Church. It’s also the most hectic, if you work in a parish. Our first job is to make the worship experience worthy of the occasion. Anyone who has ever worked to pull off an Easter liturgy knows there are just too […]
In this week’s post, I’d like to introduce you to something we’ve started at Church of the Nativity. We’re pretty excited and we think you will be too. It’s called: the Rebuilt Parish Association, or the “RPA” for short. We officially launched the RPA during our Matter.15 conference this past November. Based on all the […]
