In my undergraduate class this past fall at Vanderbilt, I had a number of ambitious seniors who were all looking forward to graduation, law school, moving to larger cities and entering what was then a red hot job market. Times have drastically changed, and they have now graduated into a starkly different reality. I have been thinking about them in recent weeks. What advice and wisdom can we give our young people who are moving on to the next stage of life in the midst of a global health pandemic that has......

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Last week, I found myself on an evening Zoom call with our church’s Board of Directors talking about how to safely allow people to return to the church building for worship in the coming weeks. As many faith leaders have already figured out, this is a very complicated conversation with many challenges. Even with strong guidance from both the Governor and Mayor, questions still remain: How many can worship at once? How far does everybody need to be apart? Are face coverings required in the building? Can there be a nursery and......

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What a few days this has been in Nashville with the storms Sunday and Monday nights on top of ongoing COVID-19 challenges. Many of our church members still do not have power. On Monday night May 4th, the Woodmont Board met via Zoom to talk about how we can slowly begin to safely reopen the Woodmont building to our members keeping the health and well-being of our congregation as a top priority and respecting the guidelines that have been put out for worshiping communities. Given all the different factors, this is a......

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These times are difficult. There’s no way around that fact. The COVID-19 virus has upended many lives and has been the cause of much fear and distress. It also presents a real quandary – we need community and connection and support right now, but we must curtail our face to face interactions dramatically in order to protect our community. At Woodmont, we are developing new ways to connect, to worship, and to reach out to each other. We don’t know how long these weeks of quarantine will last and social distancing can......

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Considerable research has gone into providing charts, graphs, and diagrams of how we can “flatten the curve,” keep hospitals from being overloaded and prevent a health care catastrophe in our community. All of this has been very necessary, valuable, and appreciated. Social distancing seems to be working well. In multiple cities and communities, there is a “breaking point” in the health care system that we have been trying desperately to avoid. It is directly tied to available hospital beds, physicians, ventilators, ad protective gear. However, I would argue that there is another......

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#1 RAISE YOUR ANTENNAE. Many kids have internal antennae that are more sensitive than we think. If a notable amount of anxiety is in their environment, they will know. They will sense it, feel it, and sometimes absorb it. So, the first thing to do is to raise your own antennae and be mindful of the environment. Can the news be heard throughout the house? Do they overhear your worried conversation with your sister? Can they see dad fretting about the market? While not sticking your head in the sand, which is......

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There is a tendency in our culture to skip directly from the celebration of Palm Sunday to the celebration of Easter. Actually, let’s be completely honest: there is a tendency on the part of many to simply celebrate Christmas and Easter and that’s all. High Holy days are wonderful but there is so much more to the Christian faith. According to John’s Gospel, so much happened in Jerusalem the days between Palm Sunday and Easter that should not be overlooked. Phillip Reif, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, once said, “Any......

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What if a time traveler suddenly approached you ten years ago and predicted the following: “I can’t explain, but 2020 is going to be crazy. Donald Trump, the Apprentice guy, will be the President of the United States. Once he is in office, he will fly around the country at night to hold rallies where everybody wears a red hat. He’ll start a twitter feud with Iran that leads us to the brink of World War III. After a phone call he has with the President of Ukraine asking that his political......

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