We welcome Rev. Bethany Meier-Evans as our guest preacher. Her ministry invites people to embrace joy more fully. She is the author of "Queer Joy".

As summer settles in around us, I am grateful for this season's invitation to slow down. The longer days, warm evenings, time in the garden, backyard cookouts, and moments spent with family and friends remind us that life is more than rushing from one obligation to the next. Summer invites us to be present: to savor good food, good company, and the beauty of God's creation.

This Sunday's Gospel continues Jesus' theme of tables, meals, and hospitality. Again and again, Jesus reminds us that God's world looks a lot like people gathered around a table, sharing food, stories, laughter, and grace. In our world that often tells us to hurry, Jesus invites us to slow down long enough to notice the abundance already present among us.

We are in the midst of celebrating Pride Month here at Colonial. Several of you are fresh from local parks and gatherings where Colonial joined neighbors in celebration.

I celebrated in a local park as well. As I walked through the celebration, I heard several people greeting one another with, “Happy Pride!” As I heard it said repeatedly, it began to sound like a greeting you might offer on a beloved holiday—a way of wishing joy, celebration, and blessing in a sacred season of the year.

This Sunday, when we gather, we will celebrate sacred love. We will hear Jesus invite us to abide in the love of God, and in return, to offer that same love to one another. To love one another as Jesus has loved us.

What a beautiful passage to ponder during Pride Month, as we celebrate communities where people seek to live honestly, love deeply, and be known as they truly are.

What does it mean to truly belong?

Throughout June, we'll explore stories that challenge exclusion and invite us into God's expansive vision of community. Together, we'll reflect on how Jesus welcomed, marginalized, healed, and called people forward. We will consider what those stories teach us about creating a church where all people can experience God's love and grace.

This Sunday, we'll begin with the story of a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years until Jesus saw her and restored her dignity. Along the way, we'll consider how many people, including LGBTQIA+ Christians and others who have experienced exclusion, have held onto their faith despite being wounded by the church, and what it means to hear Jesus' words of belonging today.



Join us as we explore what it means to create a community rooted in welcome, compassion, and love. And, please share our Pride Month events with your friends!

We have just completed a year of readings in the lectionary, beginning in September with the gospel of John and continuing this spring with Paul’s letters and the book of Acts. We now move into summer and an upcoming series on inclusion and belonging beginning June 7.

This Sunday, we’ll explore the Beatitudes from the opening of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. These familiar words, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are those who mourn,” are far more than gentle sayings or inspiring poetry. Jesus speaks these words to ordinary people living in anxious and uncertain times, offering a vision of a different kind of life and community shaped by compassion, mercy, humility, and peace.

I’m writing this while sitting beside a lake in Minnesota, listening to blackbirds, doves, and kingbirds calling out across the water. These past few days have offered a much-needed sense of quiet and rest, and it has reminded me how deeply many of us long for peace in a world that often feels filled with noise, stress, and tension.



Perhaps that longing is part of what Jesus was speaking to all along.

I hope you’ll join us Sunday as we reflect together on these ancient words and what they might still teach us about the way of peace, compassion, and community today.

This Sunday is Pentecost, the “birthday” of the church, so don’t forget to wear red as we celebrate the Spirit moving among us in joy, courage, and hope!

I have to tell you, I’m feeling especially energized lately. Maybe it’s the sunshine and warmer weather, but this time of year always seems to wake something up in me. I feel that same kind of energy stirring around Colonial Church right now too. There is so much good happening here, and so much to look forward to together. I’m deeply grateful to be part of this community in this season.

Matt, Karma (our dog!), and I are heading to Minnesota this Memorial Day to spend a couple of days with my family, including my sister and her five kids. I absolutely love being an uncle. But I could definitely use a little of that “speaking in various tongues” gift from Acts just to keep up with all the conversations happening at once.

I’m looking forward to worshiping together this Sunday as we celebrate the Spirit that continues to move through the church, and through all of us.

One activity I miss from my younger years is letter writing. I lived overseas before the times of the internet (so many, many years ago) and loved to sit down and write to my friends and family, and loved it even more, when I received a letter in return. Of course, with some of my correspondents, my letters were more newsy, less introspective. Some were more intimate, expressing my deepest thoughts and hopes.

This Sunday at Colonial, we continue with our reading of the Letter from Paul to the Philippians. A letter he wrote from prison to one of his most beloved communities. This is not a newsy letter, but a letter where he shared his affection for this young church community and his deep hope for their shared life, a life rooted in the mind, actions and love of Christ. It’s a life that doesn’t call for ease (he is writing from prison!), but one that looks to something much deeper and sustaining.

When we come together this Sunday, let us read this letter as if it was written to us, a beloved community in Prairie Village! And let us see if we can tap into this deep and sustaining message of living in community, walking together in the footsteps of Jesus.

What’s in a name?

I was eleven when my sister was born. In the months leading up to her birth, I discovered that my parents had chosen to name her “Hannah.”

I was appalled.

Did they not know the teasing that was about to ensue? Hannah… BANANA?! I was convinced this was a bad move.

My parents, on the other hand, knew something else about the name. One meaning of the name is “Grace,” while another means “[she] who God highly favors.” I suppose I couldn’t argue with that.

This week, after much thought and care, our church council shared its recommendation of a new name for our community.

For some, this is exciting; for others, it doesn’t sit so easily.

We have an opportunity now to listen to one another as we consider a potential name change. Like naming a child, we pour our dreams, hopes, and worries into the decision. We don’t have all the answers, but we trust that God is with us along the way.

Over the years, my sister has lived into her name. She has a caring heart, which she uses to love her children, my nieces and nephews, all five of them! And of course, I love it, too.

Throughout this process, we've been reminded that a name isn’t everything. What matters most is who we are, the love we share, and how we show up for one another.

But sometimes, a name can help tell that story. It can point us toward who we are and who we’re becoming.

Names grow into us, and we grow into them.

Perhaps the question before us isn’t simply, What should we call ourselves? but Who are we becoming, and what name might help us live more fully into that calling?

Like hearing my sister called “Hannah” for the first time, we may not fully understand the name at first. But with time, care, and grace, we may just grow into it… together.

I love a good statue.

Growing up Catholic, I often found myself praying while looking at

statues of Mary, Francis of Assisi, and others. We were taught that

the Spirit is not in the statue itself, but that offering reverence in

this way can help us connect more deeply to the spiritual life. For

Protestants like us, there is wisdom in that.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed I’ve been caught up in a different kind

of reverence, one centered on my phone! Especially at night, I find

myself scrolling and scrolling. I become distracted, sometimes

overwhelmed, by what I see. It has a way of pulling me away from

myself, from others, and from God.

Recently, a member of our church gave me a small ankh, an ancient

Egyptian symbol of life. This week, I decided to hold it in my hand

during prayer, asking God to be near me and to give me new life. It

felt like an important prayer, because truthfully, I’ve been feeling

overwhelmed and uncertain these days. There is so much difficult news in the world, and the constant presence of it on my TV, phone, and computer has, at times, felt like it’s “sucking the life” out of me.

I’ve felt drained, and at times unable to care for the things that are

most important to me.

So I sat quietly, holding the ankh, and began repeating a simple prayer:

“Give me more life, my God.”

As I prayed, something shifted. I began to feel more grounded and more present. I sensed, in a deeper way, the truth of the words we will

hear this Sunday from Acts: “In God we live and move and have our

being.”

I’m not suddenly free from anxiety or uncertainty. But I do feel more

rooted. And that has made a difference.

Praying with a simple word or phrase like this is actually a

long-standing spiritual practice. Some of our members who participate

in Centering Prayer experience this regularly. It’s simple, but

powerful. You might consider trying it.

The truth is, things are heavy right now. I feel it, and I imagine you

do, too. In times like these, finding ways to reconnect with God

matters. For some, that might be lighting a candle. For others, gazing

at a meaningful object, or spending time in nature. These practices

help us connect to what we cannot see but can deeply feel: the

ever-present Spirit of God among us.

This week, I invite you to reconnect with that Spirit in whatever way

you can. With everything happening in our world socially, politically,

and environmentally, rooting ourselves in something deeper is not a

luxury. It is essential to our spiritual and emotional well-being.

This Sunday, I find myself drawn into a powerful and, I admit, unsettling story in Acts: a slave girl exploited for profit. As the story unfolds, we encounter prisoners singing in the dark, earthquakes, door cells opening, and jailers asking big questions about what it all means.

As I sit with this text, I can’t help but think about those in our own time who are detained, separated from their families, or living under the shadow of systems that confine and control. The world still knows many kinds of captivity, and I feel that tension as I read this story.

At the same time, this story opens a deeper question not only about the prisons around us but also the ones within us. I wonder what holds us captive. Fear, anxiety, numbness, the pressure to perform, or that quiet sense that something isn’t right but we don’t quite know how to name it?

And still, in the midst of all this, I hear a simple and surprising word: freedom is not something we achieve, but something God is already bringing to life. Even in the darkest places I trust that the Spirit is still at work, loosening chains, opening doors, and inviting us into a deeper freedom.

I hope you’ll join me this Sunday as we listen for God’s liberating movement in our world and in our own lives. I look forward to seeing you.