Josh grew up in the Midwest before completing a B.A. in Theatre at Northwestern College [IA] and a Masters of Divinity [M.Div.] at Princeton Theological Seminary [NJ]. An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ [UCC], Josh has lived and worked in the Midwest, East Coast, Hawai’i, and Mexico. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of The Welcome Project PA, host of the Bucks-Mont PRIDE Festival, and he is Pastor of Love In Action UCC, an open and affirming congregation featured in a Vox Media episode of Divided States of Women with Liz Plank and in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Josh has 20+ years of nonprofit experience, including leading workshops and training in corporate, medical, and academic settings, focused on diversity & inclusion, grant writing, fund raising, and program management. Josh is a fellow of Interfaith Philadelphia, and designs and coordinates HS and University student groups for interfaith immersion service-learning weeks. Josh also co-facilitates Ally trainings for LGBTQIA+ inclusion and interfaith cooperation. He is a founding member of The Society for Faith & Justice, and a Collaborator for Nurturing Justice, and a member of the Driving PA Forward team via New Sanctuary Movement. He also performs regularly with the dinner theatre company, Without a Cue Productions, and has developed theatre arts curriculum for use in religious and secular settings. Josh also enjoys running, singing, traveling, learning languages, or making strange and funny faces. He lives in Center City Philly.
“A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists. Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.” ― Vera Nazarian John 17:1-11 …so that […]
John 14:1-14New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition ———————————————————————- Dear Friends, Years ago, I was fortunate to be part of a grant program with Interfaith Philadelphia which brought together youth from various Christian traditions in Greater Philadelphia together to explore what it meant to for them to be a Christian in a pluralistic world. These students, […]
John 10:1-10 I’ve always felt that when I’m pressured [or feel forced] to do something in life, I usually end up rejecting the idea, or if I go ahead with it, I don’t feel so great about it. More often than not, I think all of us feel better about major decisions or life shifts […]
“To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.” — Scot McKnight————————————————————————————————–Dear Friends: Where are you being called to follow? The concept of “following” holds unique meaning in this era of social media. When […]
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil John 12:1–812 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. […]
Luke 6:17–23 [NRSV]17 [Jesus] came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who […]
People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing. — Trevor Noah ————————————————————————————————–Luke […]
“The most sacred invitation that a person can extend to us is to invite us into their pain. But that means that we have to choose to knock on a door that we often prefer to pretend is not there.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough John 2:1-11On the third day there was a wedding in Cana […]
———————-“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.” ― Walt Whitman He Qi, The Adoration of the Magi Matthew 2:1-2 NRSVIn the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of […]
Hello Friends, Wherever you are today, whatever you are feeling, know that you are loved and valued. John 6:58 Jesus said to them…This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever. The feeding of the […]