So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. Everyone will know you as My followers if you demonstrate your love to others.

—John 13:34-35

[click on image to continue reading about what we’re leaning into this Lent]

“I am sorry”

“I was wrong”

“I don’t know”

“I’ve changed my mind”

“I need help”

These are the words

of someone who is free

—David Gate, from A Rebellion of Care

[click on image to continue reading]

This is an excerpt from the “words for the journey” that were shared on Sunday, January 18, 2026 as part of our Words Made Flesh gathering series.

—

Doubt grows in emptiness.

—from A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst

Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.” Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.” She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.” Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” [click on image to continue reading]

This is an excerpt from the “words for the journey” that were shared on Sunday, January 11, 2026 as part of our Words Made Flesh gathering series.

——

Have you heard the word that was chosen as the 2025 “word of the year” by Merriam-Webster? I was a bit surprised to learn that it was…slop. It describes the loads of low-quality digital content typically produced using AI – those absurd videos, weird advertising images, and the talking cats - along with the other fake news that looks so real. [click on image to continue reading]

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

to be understood…

Let me keep company always with those who say

"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.

—Mary Oliver, from “Mysteries, Yes”

Wonder, curiosity, imagination, risking, doing, trying, being... these are the warm flames of Life in the coldest of seasons.⁣

—Scott Erickson

“Nothing surprises me anymore.”  [click image to continue reading]

This past Saturday, we participated in another Jax River City Pride Festival. Setting up and hosting a station at the festival takes a fair amount of effort (just ask Deb who got there early and stayed late to haul two canopies to our spot!). It never takes long to figure out why it’s worth the effort, though. [click on image to continue reading]

In a landscape of churches that resemble shopping malls, it’s no wonder many of us browse faith communities like we do everything else, looking for what is attractive, entertaining, comfortable or convenient. 

Consumer “Christianity” may be as prevalent, although perhaps not as harmful as “Christian” nationalism. The former seems to foster complacency and self-centeredness, the latter superiority.

The trajectory of both seem so far from the heart of Jesus’s life and teachings.

You may be sensing this is where I’ll begin telling you we (at The Well) have found the magic formula, that our community gets it right and WE are the “real” Christians. 

Not quite.  [click on image to read more]

Our writing group has been meeting for the past ten months, and we now have a name: Story & Soul. We gather twice a month, and our time usually includes some initial reflection on & inspiration for writing, followed by Mae Beth, our wonderful facilitator, offering optional writing prompts. More recently, we have begun sharing what we’ve written.

Our time together has fueled more than just writing. It has encouraged vulnerability & sharing, fostered soulful connection, and cultivated conversation about how we can show up amid the good, the hard & the upheaval happening in the world. [click on image to continue reading]

As we continue “weaving our way toward wholeness” together, most Sundays have included a story from one of our community members. Last Sunday’s story-sharer was Laureen Husband, and she generously shared her “ethic of love” with us. With her permission, I wanted to share it here for those, like myself, who found it to be an extremely helpful & grounding guide toward loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Image: “Love in the Chaos” by Laurel Wooley // Click image to continue reading

Click on the image to receive the readings & “words for the journey” shared during our Sunday, January 19th gathering.

One of the perks of moving through the church year is that there are so many beginnings built in. Whether we are exploring creation stories or beginning a new season, or welcoming the start of the new year, something keeps telling us we get to begin again.

It’s almost like the medium is the message: there is always More. There is more to the story, more to us than our pasts - more to be written, created, received, lived.

That does not feel true at times though, does it? [click image to continue reading]

This is a time to trust, to expand,

to put down roots, to get our hands dirty -

a time to keep on going/one foot in front of the other -

boldly, with confidence, not doing what we do because

well, “we have always done it that way”.

It’s a time for being conscious -

a time for transforming.

Every year as we approach our annual beach & baptism day, I begin wondering what new connections this ancient ritual will stir up. Because I (along with my faith) continue to be under construction, there is always, always some new way of seeing that springs to life. I wrote a little about this in preparation for the last time we stood on a sandy shoreline to celebrate baptism together.

This year, I’ve been drawn to the beautiful blessing above by Jan Richardson. In it, she echoes the often underemphasized, but tireless message of scripture and of any meaningful spirituality: beloved is where we begin.

Under construction. If you are driving in almost any direction around our city, there’s a good chance you’ll encounter these words disrupting your well-planned route.  Recently I saw them warning cars not to venture down a neighborhood street where a long-awaited drainage problem was being addressed. 

Everything was such a mess. The entire street had been torn up to make room for the new, necessary pipes. 

This kind of work is so inconvenient, and yet it seems like any real repair, any lasting change requires digging beneath the surface. Not only is this kind of project disruptive, but it almost always takes longer than anticipated. 

From the beginning, The Well has been shaped by the idea of church as a journey (or movement) vs. church as a destination. Instead of church-shoppers who are searching for a well-oiled machine with the best music, preaching, and programs in town, we tend to draw people who are ready for something a little less polished & a little more stripped down & scrappy. We tend to draw those who value questions and can tolerate unfinished stories - people who are learning that healing and change come more often through discomfort, not through tying everything up with a bow.

Church as journey has looked like … [click on image to continue reading]

I’ve belonged to spiritual spaces that required I forget my body – my Black, woman, sick body — to survive. I want the liturgies of…any spiritual encounter, to make me more whole, never dismembered…Will we breathe together? Relax our shoulders, unclinch our jaws? For the divine is just as present in our breath, in our flesh, as in our mental realm.

—Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies