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.
Isaiah 60:1-3; 5-6 Matthew 2:1,2 Have you ever had a moment when things seemed to click for you, when a seemingly unsolvable problem or issue became solvable? Did the hair stand up on your arm? Did you jump up and shout Eureka! or did an imaginary light bulb suddenly appear over your head? Yes, I’m […]
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 2 Corinthians 5:17 Many of you are probably familiar with the musical Rent, a rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson, loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème. Rent follows the story of a group friends who are mostly young artists struggling to survive in New York City’s East […]
Luke 1:39-41; 46-49; 52,53 Let’s get this out of the way from the start. I know that for many, the stories about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth carry with them some pretty strong emotions and nostalgia. For some, this story can be confusing, maddening, and perhaps oppressive—depending on how religion [and your family] treated […]
In the brilliant sci-fi/fantasy Netflix series Stranger Things the main characters all go through trauma: Joyce loses her son, Will. Jonathan loses his little brother. Eleven/Jane is experimented on, deprived of parental care, tortured, and manipulated psychologically. Dustin, Mike, and Lucas lose their friend and think he’s dead. Will is taken by a creature to […]
If you haven’t seen the Netflix original show Stranger Things, I highly recommend it. I won’t give a full synopsis here, but even if you are not familiar with it, I think what follows will still be relevant and hopefully meaningful. Let’s talk about friendship. In Stranger Things, friendship takes center stage. It is set […]
Isaiah 64:4-6; 8, 9b Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Go. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against […]
Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20 The most common type of wisdom in society is what we call conventional wisdom. This is the mainstream, what “everybody knows.” It is society’s understanding about what is real and how people should live. Conventional wisdom includes ideas that are so accepted they are not questioned. These ideas tell us now […]
Matthew 5:1-10 Hey, how ya feelin’ today? Blessed? Are ya feelin’ blessed today? If you were to answer “yes” to that question, what does that mean, to be blessed? Let’s ask our friend the dictionary. First off, if this word is used as a verb, it is pronounced blest, with one syllable, i.e. “Before […]
Matthew 22:34-46 What rituals do you have when you wake up each day? What rituals do you have when you go to bed? It is not hyperbole to say that whatever “waking up” habits and “pre-sleep” habits we practice affect our days and how they are lived and experienced. I’m certainly not a morning person […]
John 8:12 [NRSV] Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. I John 1:5-7a This is the message we have heard from Jesus and proclaim to you, that God is light and in God there […]