Rev. Ethan Brown, Pastor and Minister of Care & Discipleship

Do you want to be in the room where it happened? Aaron Burr certainly did—or so the song goes. How could he not have wanted to attend dinner that night in 1790 between Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton at 57 Maiden Lane New York, New York? Somehow, over the course(s) of the evening, our country's capital shifted down to the Potomac and the federal banking system got its start. Burr, for all his connections and charm, was out in the cold while big things were happening....

There is a Pakistani proverb that says, the first cup of tea is shared between strangers, over the second cup of tea people become friends, and the third cup makes you family. I was first exposed to this proverb in the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson as he detailed his encounter with the Taliban after a failed hike up the mountain K2 in 1993. Motenson had stumbled across a village in Central Asia and was warmly welcomed, fed, and cared for. As Mortenson recovered, he noticed how the...

Our master bathroom isn't much of a "master bathroom." It used to be shared between two rooms before losing a door and being elevated in status. Yet change always brings about unintended consequences, and our tiny bathroom is a bit of a damp cave without the air passing through from multiple rooms. Someone, at some point, tried to improve the air situation with the addition of a bathroom fan—just the wrong kind. When we bought the house, a beautiful hunter ceiling fan hung in the middle of...