Posts from July 2014
Speaking of God
“Some people spend years trying to overcome the bad messages delivered to them in the name of the faith, which makes it all the more urgent to learn how to speak of God so that the love of God and neighbor (even the ‘neighbor’ who is yourself) is built up and not torn down.” Consider messages that folks have delivered to you about God that fell short. How might you speak of God in a different and more effective way…
Toward Sunday
We continue our four-week worship series this week called Talking Ourselves into Being Christian. We hope this worship series will help us to talk about following Jesus in our everyday lives. We will focus on talking about faith in the real world today…in our work lives and our volunteer commitments and our families. Our worship series is based on a book called Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian by Thomas G. Long, a professor of theology and preaching at Candler School…
You are accepted
Sometimes the most faithful testimony doesn’t sound very religious. Sometimes a teacher’s whisper of encouragement, a word of greeting spoken over the screen of your laptop, a cup of tea delivered without request and an accompanying “this is for you my friend”…communicates that, as Paul Tillich wrote “you are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know.” Whenever we use our words to join in the activity of God in…
Talk to God.
“At the first light of day, we begin to talk. We talk to God because God has first spoken to us. And we talk to other people. We talk to others because the way God made us, it is not good for us to be alone. We try to shape our words so that they will invite others to be our companions, so that they will be full of Christ’s peace.” How might God shape your words with someone today?
Begin the day this way.
Thomas Long invites us to ask the following question when we awaken in the morning: “God what are you doing out there in the world today, and how can I be part of it?” Try to ask yourself this question each day for the rest of the week.
Toward Sunday
We continue our four-week worship series this week called Talking Ourselves into Being Christian. Our worship series is based on a book called Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian by Thomas G. Long, a professor of theology and preaching at Candler School of Theology. We hope this worship series will help us to talk about following Jesus in our everyday lives. Outline of Talking Ourselves into Being Christian July 20: Overview. Living and Talking about Faith. Psalm 139.1-12,23-24 July 27: This is the Day: Waking Up to the Joy God is…
Finding the words
“Most of us are not professional theologians, and for many Christians, almost all talk about God occurs when we are inside the church. This is not surprising, since talking about God inside the church is often a lot easier and much less threatening than talking about God out in the world….The grooves of what to say and how to say it are already carved into the service of worship and into our memory. But what about speaking of God in…
Words
This week we consider the words we might use to express our faith. We appreciated this video featured on RADIOLAB and thought you might enjoy 3 minutes of contemplation on “Words”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfwkArpvU
Talking about faith.
“A common misunderstanding is to think that talking about faith means getting our belief system all worked out in advance before we open our mouths. When we speak about our faith, we intuitively think that what we are doing is finding the language to say what we think we already believe. That is, we get our beliefs formulated in our minds and hearts , and then we search for just the right words to capture what is already fixed and…
Toward Sunday
We begin a new four-week worship series this week called Talking Ourselves into Being Christian. We hope this worship series will help us to talk about following Jesus in our everyday lives. Our worship series is based on a book called Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian by Thomas G. Long, a professor of theology and preaching at Candler School of Theology. Outline of Talking Ourselves into Being Christian July 20: Overview. Living and Talking about Faith. Psalm 139.1-12,23-24 July 27: This is the Day: Waking Up to the Joy God…
Wondering
Frederick Buechner in his book “Peculiar Treasures”, gives us a glimpse of the two brothers in our scripture for this week. Read through his descriptions below and allow yourself to wonder about Jacob and Esau. Where do you see Grace? How might you frame a story like this in your own family? How are doing good and doing harm linked? Jacob: The book of Genesis makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Jacob was, among other things, a crook.…
The Trickster
“The Trickster may work as a kind of outlet for strong emotions or actions in which humans may not indulge….despite his or her flaws the Trickster often represents the introduction of good things to society.” (from Barbara Babcock) Learn more here: http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~mmagouli/trickster.htm For some it is uncomfortable to consider the role “Trickster” in the story of Jacob and Esau. We want a hero and a villain in which to place our security and our blame. Life falls into these neat categories only…
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