Rev. McKinley L. Sims, M.Div.

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The Sacred Wheel turns on and we enter both a new season and the falling time of this holy year. The Summer fades away and Autumn rushes on with new beginnings: a new school year, a new church year, a new football season, and a new minister. How good it is to start these things…

After returning from an 11 day trip to Wales with my family, everything I’ve tried to write hasn’t seemed appropriate. Everything comes out cliche. It was life-changing. Best trip ever. Great food, great people. It was rejuvenating as a vacation before starting the new ministry at Restoration. Those are all true things, but they’re not…

People don’t want you to be outraged because so much energy and power is invested in keeping things comfortable for the white folks for whom America has always been great. Anything that knocks that idea is so scary because it forces us to confront the reality that our society is not as blameless as we…

Here’s a truth about me: I’ve always struggled with anger. I’m very competitive by nature, and this strength helped me to excel on the sports field as undersized and underwhelming quarterback and point guard. My anger sometimes gave me superhuman strength and speed, at least that’s how I remember it. The weakness of it is…

June 4, 2018 – Announcing our Next Minister Dear Members and Friends of Restoration: The Ministerial Search Committee was very excited to submit the Reverend McKinley “Kin” Sims to the Board for consideration as our contract minister. The Board met to discuss Reverend Sims’ qualifications and to finalize a salary and benefit package, which I…

I’m sitting on a bus to Philadelphia to visit KP. This of course, led me to really grapple with the idea of suffering in our post modern society. Yes, suffering. That word that few of us want to struggle with and fewer of us want to acknowledge. So much of advertising and Ted Talks and…

In honor of the socialist, liberal, foreign-born, protesting, social-justice warrior who didn’t care about your sexual orientation or how many partners you have had but railed against sexual assault and misconduct, who knew that memes don’t make you holier and that weapons don’t make you safer, and that women are always to be believed and…

….I work in a mental hospital, maximum security, in SE D.C. near the Anacostia neighborhood, where the average IIC is a 60 year old Black man committed their by DC criminal court.  There are bars on the doors and cameras in every room and there are no hidden corners. I pass through two security checkpoints…