The Gospel of John has always been my foundational area of research, writing, and speaking. My soul is at home in it. I find it endlessly fascinating and inspiring, sometimes puzzling, with the power to deeply transform those who encounter it. I also write on 1-3. The letters may be short in length, but are long on content spiritual, communal, and theological formation.

I’m currently writing a book called "The Agony, the Ecstasy, and The Ordinary: Experiencing God in the New Testament." Have you ever EXPERIENCED God? Have you felt near to God? Distant from God? How do our Scriptures become a site of divine encounter? How might they occasion divine encounter? How do they help us to make sense of God’s presence in times of agony, ecstasy, or the quotidian mundane? Let's gather around these questions. Along the way in our exploration, we will draw upon fascinating work being done related to the Bible and emotions, the bible and the senses, as well as the bible and mystical experiences.

Having spent many years researching and writing the Women in the Bible book, I am always thrilled to address this topic in retreat settings, workshops, lectures, seminars, and preaching. In 2023 I even co-led a trip to the Holy Land with 100+ women called Her Journey with a focus on women in the Bible. There are many women in the Bible and there are many ways to approach the topic. From individual women to groups of women, named women to unnamed women, women in Jesus' ministry, women in Paul's ministry. Women creating, women suffering violence. God, Jesus, the disciples, and Paul are all characterized with female descriptors at different points. In any setting, time will run out before the soul-enriching conversation about all of this does!!

I am a leader in the burgeoning field of psychedelics and spirituality in both medical and non-medical contexts. I have completed the Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research, I serve as a Field Scholar for the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality, and I'm on the Transforming Chaplaincy Psychedelic Chaplaincy Network. I regularly speak in medical and religious contexts, helping clinicians to understand the role of spirituality in healing and helping people of faith understand the role of psychedelic medicines in healing. I am currently writing a book called "Psychedelics and Soul Care: What Christians Need to Know" (Eerdmans, forthcoming).

For over 20 years I've researched, written, taught a seminary course, and appeared in various media, including a documentary film on this topic. For me, if Christianity cannot engage these topics with the utmost honesty, careful nuance, and, finally, grounded hope, then I'm fairly uninterested in what it has to say about less weighty topics. Fortunately, the Bible affords us ample opportunity to do just that. Let's consider these topics together to ensure that our related theology serves the good news of abundant life.

The formation of the canonical New Testament was a long, involved process. The individual books of the New Testament were composed between 50-125 A.D. by various authors. They were not brought together into the collection of 27 books that we know until hundreds of years after Christ's death. The first Christians also wrote and used many other books besides those that made it into the New Testament canon. So how and when did we get our present New Testament, which, unlike the Old Testament, is uniform among all Christians? And how did we get from the original Greek New Testament texts to the modern language translations most of us use. And why are there so many different English translations? I find that many people have never thought to ask about this, but once they do, they find it gripping and meaningful!

I love to explore Paul's ministry and relationship with the Corinthians! Name any possible issue that could arise when a group of flawed people are creating community to journey through real life together and become deeper, wiser souls--these letters have it all! We see a range of challenges, emotions, questions, failures and successes. Endlessly enthralling because it's always so timely.

According to the CDC 28.7% of U.S. adults have a disability. In John 9:2 Jesus' disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 2000 years later people with disabilities are still subjected to such harmful theologies, along with the assumption that if they just prayed harder or had more faith, they would be cured. Jesus contested such ideas (he replied, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned") and so can we. I've worked in this area for many years now, helping Christians discover a) the ways the Bible is in some ways liberative for people with disabilities and in some ways less so and b) the ways our interpretations of the Bible are in some ways liberative for people with disabilities and in some ways less so. This complext subject deserves our deepest reflection and best practices within our churches and the larger world.

When we say that "the Bible is authoritative," what do we mean by it? Why do Christians engage Scripture? How do we engage Scripture? The Rabbis have a saying: “Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it; and contemplate it and grow grey and old over it and stir not from it” (Mishnah Avot 5:22). I love Scripture. I teach it, I preach it, I exult in it, I puzzle over it, I talk back to it, and sometimes I even live it. I especially enjoy exploring it in community. How do these particular texts shape our identity, our ethics, our liturgies and rituals, and our ability to make meaning of the world around us and within us?