Posts from January 2013 (Page 2)

©Bob Sherman Photography:  www.BobShermanPhotography.com What is Grace?  Bishop Ambrose from the 3rd century attempted to answer this for his people (we are not joking when we say human beings have been pursuing this question for a very long time).  Bishop Ambrose wrote a sermon based on a verse from Genesis.  “Let the waters produce living things, and living things were born.” (Gen 1.20).  Ambrose preached to his people “Be like those fish!  Imitate them!”  Maybe Ambrose knew that the people would…

Grace is not irresistible.  Grace is amazing. Grace calls us, Grace does not compel us. Grace lures us. “We have this one chance to live this one life of ours, to make our difference: the stakes are high but the Grace runs deep.” (from On The Mystery by Catherine Keller p. 149) What lures you in? 

This week our worship will be rooted in Ephesians 2.1-7. Here is a paraphrase  of this passage written by the Rev. Steve Garness Holmes written in 2012.  Once you were drowning in a chaos of fear and desire that sucked all the life out of you, tyrannized by voices outside of you, enslaved by the prince of power, indebted to The Corporation, obediently oblivious. All of us have been there, children of anxiety, shards of ourselves, desperate for our own lives.…

If someone were to stop you on the street and ask you to tell them about Grace, what would you say?

As we consider Ephesians 2.19-22 this week ask yourself these questions: When have you tried going it alone in your Christian walk?  How did this impact your faith?  Why might Christians who go it alone be more likely to compromise their faith than those who are together as “members of the household of God” in accountability groups such as our Kitchen Tables?    

“There are mysteries which you can solve by taking thought.  For instance, a murder mystery whose mysteriousness must be dispelled in order for the truth to be known. There are other mysteries which do not conceal a truth to think your way to but whose truth is itself the mystery.  The mystery of your self, for example.  The more you try to fathom it, the more fathomless it is revealed to be.  No matter how much of your self you…

We begin our 5-week series called “from DIY to renovation by Grace” this week.  Throughout the series we’ll explore what it means to recognize, name and claim God’s Grace in our daily life.  Our worship series will be rooted in the Ephesians 2.   Ignatius of Loyola, a sixteenth century priest who lived in Spain and founder of the Jesuits, composed a process of spiritual discernment for Christians who are seeking to find out what God intends for them.  According…

In the beginning was the word, scattered everywhere. Then the word was assembled with experience, colored with the red of blood and the black of eyes, and the word became a sentence and the story took shape. The question posed to the magi was not what gifts do you bring? but good or bad, either way, can you bear the story? It is a question best borne with song. That is why the angels sang, and so must we. from…