CHAPEL VIEWS
Regular glances at faith, culture, and news. Grab some coffee and join the conversation!
Click here to read Chris Keating’s Faith Perspectives columns from the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Something terrible happened
Something awful appeared on the Internet the other evening. Well, awful is a bit of an overstatement. Let’s settle on surprising. Something surprising greeted me on the Internet the other evening. Glancing through Facebook, I was confronted by a photograph of our...
Crossing bridges of faith
Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others Barbara Brown Taylor, HarperOne, 2019. Review by Chris Keating Barbara Brown Taylor and I have a delightful arrangement. She writes books, and I read them. She is unaware of this arrangement, though I know many others...
Show up. Show interest. Show concern.
We’re challenged to be the church without walls. God calls us to show up, show interest, and show concern.
Rediscovering Mother’s Day
There once was a church that decided the best way to celebrate Mother’s Day was to invite the pastor’s wife to preach the sermon and to include other women as worship leaders. I might point out that primary proponent of this idea was the pastor. He thought it was a...
Feeling the sting
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Misty clouds are trying to block the afternoon sunlight, but now and then the sun finds a way to poke through the clouds. Signs of spring are working their way through the muddy mush of the ground’s...
Searching for answers after violence
Orginally posted at www.stltoday.com By Chris Keating After the shooting ends, the questions begin. News of the shootings at two New Zealand mosques blew into our lives Friday like the bitter gusts of wind which swept through St. Louis recently. The violence...
“Were You There?” offers guide through struggle and pain
Beginning this week, I’ll be using “Chapel Views” to introduce various resources, practices, and ideas for you to use during Lent. Face it, Lent can be a hard sell. For one thing, we’re fatigued by snow and winter. If you ask a Midwesterner what they want to give up...
Festival of Sound to sing February 24
On Sunday, Woodlawn Chapel will welcome the Festival of Sound singers, an African American gospel chorus. They’ll be singing in worship in honor of black history month. They’ll also help us hear how history mixes with the chorus of current realities. That thought...
Epiphany stories
I love to tell stories about Woodlawn Chapel, and I hope you do as well. I love to share the stories of how we care for each other, and how that love is particularly apparent in times of distress. I love to tell stories of acolytes trying to light the candles,...
A different sort of coach
NFL coaches beware: Coach Keating is ready to roll. Go ahead and laugh. Thinking of me as a football coach – or a coach of any sport, for that matter, is absurd. Even the most desperate beginning youth team wouldn’t hire me as a coach – and for good reasons. Yet...