28 Friday Apr 2017
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
Downtown with a group of friends and recent acquaintances before the great Park Street Church steeple. Only a few months left in our summer tours this year as I plan to move soon to another city, so book a tour while supplies last!
21 Saturday May 2016
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
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May 21, 2016
236th anniversary of the repose of John Eliot
May 21, 1690
Great to be downtown today giving the first tour of the new season with a great mix of folks from as far away as Texas and as nearby as Worcester, MA. Gave them the John Eliot tour in honor of his Feast Day today.
24 Friday Jul 2015
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
Great weather and lots of interest in John Eliot brought the girls and I downtown for a tour with a group that consisted of actors from Song on the Wind, an original musical about the life of John Eliot. A good time was had by all as we testified to Boston’s almost 400 year old heritage and helped many passers-by overcome modern New England’s faith-a-phobia.
28 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
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October 28, 2014
Commemoration of the 368th anniversary of John Eliot’s first sermon to the native tribes of Massachusetts in his nascent ability to speak their language October 28, 1646.
As the opening of our tour season this year came near the date of John Eliot’s repose, so the close of this season of summer tours falls on the anniversary of Eliot’s first sermon in the native Algonquian language of the tribes of Massachusetts. I am proud to live near the site of that first sermon at Nonantum (“Rejoicing”), now a village of Newton. No celebration I know of was planned for this great, but forgotten memorial, so we memorialize it here with the hopes that someday Boston Pilgrim Tours may move beyond the downtown walking tour for John Eliot and develop a road trip that encompasses where he spent most of his life: in the wilderness, among his native flock of praying Indians. Continue reading
07 Saturday Jun 2014
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
June 7, 2014, Eve of the Feast of Pentecost: The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church
A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of visiting the site of John Eliot’s first and oldest mission to the native Massachusett/Algonquian people of eastern New England: the first Meetinghouse of the Praying Indians of Natick, MA. Across the street from the meetinghouse, in a tiny, but lovely little brick structure lives the Bacon Free Library, and inside the library is a precious relic from New England’s religious heritage: a second edition original of John Eliot’s Bible translation into the language of the native people of Massachusetts! It sounds a bit odd from what we know of the subsequent history and relationship between the English Puritans (along with later settlers) and the Native Americans that there was a translation made of the whole Bible into a language only spoken by a relatively small section of humanity. When I spoke to the President of the Natick Historical Society, that is what she marveled at the most: Where did Eliot get such advanced ideas of toleration and outreach to such a disadvantaged and foreign people? The miracle of Pentecost is a direct answer to this most profound question: Continue reading
25 Friday Apr 2014
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
Spoke at the MASSHope Homeschool Convention this afternoon in Worcester, MA to a group of leaders for support groups. The topic was Making Field Trips Faith-full meaning how to look at the usual field trip destinations through the eyes of faith. Other talks are brewing in my brain. Contact me today to speak to your youth group, leadership staff, or other social gathering!
11 Friday Apr 2014
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
Park Street Church Alive with Activity on Friday Nights
A church meeting on a Friday night?! Most mainline congregations in this country fight just to keep people in the pews at the regularly scheduled “church time” of Sunday morning. But why would any church in its right mind schedule a gathering on Friday night when most Americans are thinking about pizza and a movie? Because the right mind for the Church is the mind of Christ who fills all time and existence with Himself, just as the famous Church on Park Street in Boston has done with a time slot usually reserved for worldly indulgence. Continue reading
27 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in New England's Religious Experience
There is one great tendency that has stood out for me over the years of my pilgrimage as a transplanted Midwesterner and adopted Bostonian. It is this northeastern fear of things related to faith and religion. I have been trying for years to nail down the origins of this quintessential New England trait, and it stumps me what to make of it.
Of course, Boston Pilgrim Tours exists to alleviate this unnatural pathology in all of its various forms. We are doing well as a city with a plethora of tours dedicated to culture, history, and even architecture. But we stop short when it comes to belief. I have been on many a tour of churches, mosques, or synagogues in which the house of worship is treated as a kind of museum piece to be dusted off and admired purely for its historical place. Never a hint of living, breathing faith. Those on the tour who might be aware of a particular denomination along with its proclivities of practice and confession share their knowledge to the group almost apologetically, as a private fetish of which they ought to be ashamed or at least not overindulgent. Continue reading
