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“Jazz musicians seek to live lives of radical receptivity.  Human beings are at their best when they do the same – when they are open to the world, able to notice expansive horizons of possibility, fully engaged in skillful activity, and living in contexts that summon responses that lead to new discoveries.”  (Yes To The Mess by Frank J. Barrett p. xv) How might your life reflect “radical receptivity” to doing good, doing no harm and staying in love with…

  Writing about his album Kinda Blue in “Miles, The Autobiography with Quincy Troupe” Miles Davis says:   “This time I added some other kind of sound I remembered from being back in Arkansas, when we were walking home from church and they were playing these bad gospels.  So that kind of feeling came back to me and I started remembering what that music sounded like and felt like.  That feeling is what I was trying to get close to. …

“Jazz bands actually are organizations designed for innovation, and the design elements from jazz can be applied to other organizations seeking to innovate.  Further, in order for jazz bands to be successful, they require a commitment to a mind-set, a culture, practices and structures, and a leadership framework that is strikingly similar to what it takes to foster innovation in organizations.”  (From the Preface of Yes To The Mess, Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz by Frank J. Barrett) There are…

We begin a new eight-week worship series this Sunday called Yes to the Mess: Surprising Lessons from Jazz & Acts. Our worship series is structured around a book called Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz by Frank J. Barrett.  Throughout this worship series we will hold Barrett’s reflections on jazz in creative tension with the development of the earliest church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.  The Acts of the Apostles “is a highly evocative story of the…

Good Friday at The Table The halls of heaven ring empty. The sapphire, carnelian and amethyst gleam for no one. The great mountain, the holy throne sit untouched. You won’t find the All-Merciful at this remove, nor the storehouse of the powers that raise the dead The Glorious One is not here, but far outside the fortress, favoring the tents of the forgotten. The Loving One has gone out into the silence of those who have been cut off, into…

Jesus, prophet of justice, knows the wrath of the mighty. Jesus, lamb of God, hears them sharpening their knives, and chooses gentleness. Even with his death rising on the horizon, he gathers with his beloved to celebrate the Passover, the great feast of liberation, the celebration of God’s overthrow of the powers of oppression; and he sings the song, the song of dawn sung in the night, the song prisoners sing, the song that will lead them out, that will…

Our community has lived in the question “who do you say Jesus is?” over the last 5 weeks.  We hope you have moved toward greater clarity in answering this question for yourself and for watching over others in love as they seek answers for themselves.  Very soon, our celebration of Easter Sunday will bring this series to a close.   We walk intentionally toward that day but not before we pause to attend both Maundy Thursday March 29 6:30pm in Fellowship Hall and Good Friday 7:00 pm in…

No one can do this homework for you.  Every generation has to be converted anew and the Gospel has to ever be preached in new contexts and cultures in ways that are good news to that time and people.  Yes, institutions and denominations are necessary and somehow inevitable, but when they imagine that they can prepackage the message in eternal formulas and half-believed (half-experienced?) doctrines and Scriptures, they often become their own worst enemy.  Too many people join a club…

Who Do You Say I Am? by AGAPE (Dave Scherer) Verse 3 He’s my brother my brother my brother brother And there will never be another for love he suffered so that we know Love-the subject of every song that he wrote   Turned death into life turned Evian to Pinot Hung with the lepers in the spot not lectures But he taught through stories the glorious hero  Homeless refugee like Sarai and Abram They tried to detain him and…

Jesus practically begs for some trust from his disciples, even after they’ve witnessed his miracles and heard his profound teaching.  He eventually puts this question to them:  “Who do you say that I am?”  Don’t give me your theologies.  Who is the Jesus you know?  That’s the only Jesus that can really touch you and liberate you.  Finally Peter responds (Mark 8.29) ” You are the Christ!”  “And Jesus gave him strict orders not to tell anyone”  (Mark 8.30)  Why?…

Who Do you say..I am? verse 2 by AGAPE (David Scherer) Person A thinks the savior is love It’s Jesus who frees us so grace is enough When she isn’t right.  She lives her life as if it’s like She’s really been forgiven by the living Christ Person B can’t seem to find the love path. Reads about the blood bath thinks the Maker loves wrath.     She doesn’t see the cheek get turned When she sees all the kids on…