the Rev. Mark David Johnson, MDiv, STM
Grace to you, and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. On this day we celebrate the feast of St Michael and All Angels. Most congregations wouldn’t celebrate this festival unless if fell on a Sunday, … Read more
Branding has never been one of my strengths. That’s why the old title of this blog was “a somewhat sarcastic reading of the ELCA’s 25th anniversary slogan:” (almost) always being made (sorta) new. But since my first attempt at rebranding, … Read more
If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it – but New Jersey is pretty awesome. It took me three years of living here to be able to admit this, but there it is. New Jersey is awesome. I started writing this … Read more
“Well, now what?” I don’t title sermons, but if I had to, that’d be it today. “Well, now what?” Of course, Sundays have titles, at least off-the-record. You now, there’s “Good Shepherd Sunday” and “John the Baptist Sunday,” not to … Read more
When I was on internship in Easton PA, I spent one afternoon a week in the Northampton County Department of Corrections. My supervisor and I mostly functioned as teachers. We would teach classes like “Intro to World Religions,” “How to … Read more
We’ve all heard the expression “give something up for Lent.” This guilty pleasure is in our DNA as Christians: to abstain from fried foods, or Facebook, or some other unhealthy habit. Of course there’s the opposite approach where instead of … Read more