Posts from August 2013

Call It Work

It may surprise you to learn about how Goodwill Industries began. Labor.   Hospitality. Work. “Work as a way for people to lift themselves from poverty.” How might your work include reaching in love to the least and the vulnerable today?    

Mustard Seed School

  Laboring in love so that others may survive and thrive under difficult circumstances is part of following Jesus.  Loving our neighbor requires us to care for the least among us.   We have been reaching in love by collecting backpacks for Mustard Seed School.   If you would like to learn more about the school click the logo above.  If you would like to contribute please click here.  

Thistle Farms

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/64927155] Thistle Farms is a social enterprise of women who have survived lives of prostitution, trafficking, addiction, and life on the streets. By hand the women create natural body care products.  At Thistle Farms the belief is that love is stronger than all the forces that drive women to the streets.  Learn more about Thistle Farms . How might your choices this week reflect your commitment to follow Jesus?  How might the purchase of products produced by labors of love…

Toward Sunday

This week our worship will be grounded in portions of Hebrews 13.    We will lift up the ancient tradition of  “loving the stranger” (we call this “Hospitality”), as we wonder about the questions below: What practices and attitudes are at the heart of Christian discipleship? How does your work (paid or volunteer) come out of your understanding of following the teachings of Jesus? In what way might your Kitchen Table hold you accountable for self-examination in this area? For those…

Vacation Prayer

Vacation Prayer  by Steve Garness-Holmes God of Sabbath, Master of infinite playfulness, bless those who are on vacation. Protect them from the worries of home. Guide them, that they may become lost in a new place, with no way but to wander. Shepherd them to still places. Watch over them, that they may not stumble into work or obligation. Grant them wonder, delight, renewal and release. May their fireworks be grand, their campfires lovely, their beaches uncrowded, their traffic at…

Regarding Vacation

“people ask, “What did you do?” ……the best part was that for a few days we sat around with two of the boys at a lake cabin and did nothing. No hiking, jet-skiing, shopping, sightseeing, or even watching TV—that would have been too much work. Just sleeping, sitting around, reading books, napping, playing games, and being with each other. Sort of like Sabbath. That’s what vacation is: vacancy, empty time. Time in which you’re not doing, just being. This is…

The world goes on.

Vacation by Steve Garness-Holmes I went on vacation for a week. The world went on without me;          Another bore it carefully,          whose world it is, not mine. I was purely who I am,          proving nothing.          earning nothing. I was present for no end          but to be present.  It was lovely. This is the gift of Sabbath. May it come to you again and again,          like breathing, like a heartbeat,          a Word from God.

Vacation?

[wpvideo 2dVWmfoZ] The Vacation By Wendell Berry  Once there was a man who filmed his vacation. He went flying down the river in his boat  with his video camera to his eye, making  a moving picture of the moving river  upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly  toward the end of his vacation. He showed  his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,  preserving it forever: the river, the trees,  the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat …

Toward Sunday

  Worship this coming Sunday will invite us to consider what we might learn from vacationing as we seek to root our lives in Grace and grow in faith.  We will reflect on the relationship of vacation to Sabbath.   Our Scripture this week is Psalm 71.1-6.  Vacationing can provide refuge from the stresses of everyday life.  Vacations can deliver us from routine and renew us with new life.  Followers of Jesus know that such refuge and deliverance comes from…

Swim Freely

After years of practice one learns to swim freely.  This morning in worship Matt’s message will focus on how we might find Grace through swimming. We would love to see you there!  Swimmers and land lovers welcome.  All means all.

The Swimmer

by Mary Oliver All winter the water has crashed over the cold the cold sand. Now it breaks over the thin branch of your body. You plunge down, you swim two or three strokes, you dream of lingering in the luminous undertow but can’t; you splash through the bursting white blossoms, the silk sheets — gasping, you rise and struggle lightward, finding your way through the blue ribs back to the sun, and emerge as though for the first time…

Something New

This is my son Harrison.  Harrison has been swimming since he was about 5 years old.  He has always loved the water.  As a young person he joined a swim team and this has continued into his life as a college student where he still swims competitively.  He is a certified life guard and swim instructor.   He knows a lot about the water.  Take time to examine this picture, taken on the day he learned to wake board at…
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