Posts from 2015 (Page 3)
Toward Sunday
We’re excited to celebrate The Table Turns 5 this Sunday! Yesterday Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto helped us to reflect on our vintage church’s past. This Sunday we’ll celebrate 5 years of life together as The Table at Central UMC. We have something very special planned for this Sunday. You won’t want to miss! Outline for Our Vintage Church ▪September 13: Looking Back (Mark 8.27-38) ▪September 20: Celebrating 5 years of worship & Kitchen Tables (Mark 9.30-37) ▪September 27: Mapping…
Toward Sunday
This week we begin a new worship series called Our Vintage Church. We will spend 3 weeks hearing the story of our beginning, celebrating 5 years of worship and Kitchen Tables and hearing a vision for our future. Outline for Our Vintage Church ▪September 13: Looking Back (Mark 8.27-38) ▪September 20: Celebrating 5 years of worship & Kitchen Tables (Mark 9.30-37) ▪September 27: Mapping our Future (Mark 9:38-50) Karen Oliveto, pastor of Glide UMC in San Francisco will preach this Sunday.…
How might we practice an Earth-honoring faith today?
Fr. John Chryssavgis defines asceticism as as an Earth-honoring way of faith which calls us to… travel light—we can always manage with less than we imagine; let go—we are to learn to relinquish our desire to control; open up—we are called to create bonds, to reunite, to reconcile; soften up—how can we make our communities less savage, more inhabitable? tread light—we must not hurt, we must stop wounding our environment; live simply—not complicating our relationship with each other and with our…
On Care For Our Common Home
Pope Francis released an encyclical earlier this summer calling for the care of Earth. Here is a link to the letter by Pope Francis entitled Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home. The title comes from the Canticle of the Sun by Saint Francis of Assisi. As we continue our worship series on Earth-Honoring Faith, we encourage you to take some time to read this important document.
The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps…
Toward Sunday
We will turn this week from Consumption to Climate and reflect upon how our faith might shape the ways we consume. The outline for this worship series began to develop earlier this summer when we attended a conference called Seizing An Alternative. We hope this worship series will encourage us to consider how our faith tradition calls us to honor the earth. The earth is in a time of peril and we believe our Christian tradition can both teach and…
Toward Sunday
We continue our four-week worship series called Earth-Honoring Faith. The outline for this worship series began to develop earlier this summer when Matt and I attended a conference called Seizing An Alternative. We hope this worship series will encourage us to consider how our faith tradition calls us to honor the earth. The earth is in a time of peril and we believe our Christian tradition can both teach and encourage us to respond more faithfully in our daily…
Toward Sunday
We continue our four-week worship series called Earth-Honoring Faith. The outline for this worship series began to develop earlier this summer when we attended a conference called Seizing An Alternative. We hope this worship series will encourage us to consider how our faith tradition calls us to honor the earth. The earth is in a time of peril and we believe our Christian tradition can both teach and encourage us to respond more faithfully in our daily lives. Outline for Earth-Honoring Faith ▪August 16:…
Caring
“Song is more than lament and consolation; it is inspiration. Song bears the human spirit at its most expressive and expansive. This time, however, the song we sing must learn humbly and deeply from the changing Earth we inhabit. Its melodies and harmonies must be Earth-oriented in ways matched to our sober responsibility for a contracting planet in jeopardy at human hands. We are not onlookers or audience this time, guilty or innocent bystanders. We are, like jazz singers and…
Toward Sunday
We transition this week from our worship series called On Ramp to a four-week worship series called Earth-Honoring Faith. The outline for this worship series began to develop earlier this summer when Matt and I attended a conference called Seizing An Alternative. We hope this worship series will encourage us to consider how our faith tradition calls us to honor the earth. The earth is in a time of peril and we believe our Christian tradition can both teach and…
Salvation
“Who knows how the awareness of God’s love first hits people. We all have our own tales to tell, including those of us who wouldn’t believe in God if you paid us. Some moment happens in your life that you say Yes to right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. Laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. Waking up to the first snow. Being in…
Toward Sunday
We are in the final week of On Ramp; our five-week worship series imaginatively exploring central topics in Christian faith. We turn from Jesus to Salvation this week in worship. We are drawing upon and adapting some of the framework of a series called Animate (Faith) by SparkHouse Publications as we prepare this worship series for our particular context. Outline for On Ramp ▪July 12: Religion (Mark 6.14-29) ▪July 19: Bible (Acts 17.10-12) ▪July 26: God (1 Timothy 6.16, John 1.18, Matthew 6.9, Revelation 4.1-11, Luke 13.34) ▪August 2: Jesus (John 6.24-35) ▪August 9:…