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This Sunday, November 4 is the final week of our five-week worship series called Healing the Heart of Democracy, based on the writings of Parker Palmer.  We will make our Deep commitments of faith and finance for the coming year. This Week’s Habit of the Heart: A Capacity to Create Community “A capacity to create community: Learning to speak and act as an individual does not contradict community but requires it: you can’t have one without the other. History consistently…

Invocation Let us try what it is to be true to gravity. to grace, to the given, faithful to our own voices, to lines making the map of our furrowed tongue. Turned toward the root of a single word, refusing solemnity and slogans, let us honor what hides and does not come easy to speech.  The pebbles we hold in our mouths help us to practice song, and we sing to the sea.  May the things of this world be…

For the rest of this week, notice moments when something occurs or is said that makes you want to speak out. Experiment with when you decide to say what’s on your mind and when you decide to keep your thoughts to yourself. If you’re someone who tends to let it fly, try taking a deep breath and watching instead of reacting.If you’re someone who tends to keep your opinions inside, give yourself a little nudge to say it out loud…

It is often a challenge to find our voices.  It takes courage, the courage that is found in our hearts. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-pEa5uyR8]

This Week’s Habit of the Heart: A Sense of Personal Voice and Agency Our biblical text for Sunday will be Mark 1.9-13. Take some time to read this story of God’s voice & agency and hold it with you as you move through your week. Here is Parker Palmer’s description of this habit: “A sense of personal voice and agency: If we are to take advantage of these energizing potentials, we need to speak and act—not only to express our truth…

Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  The word Bethlehem  literally means “House of Bread”. In our passage from Mark 6:30-44 this week Jesus provides bread for the crowd.  We should not be surprised given his hometown.  That was his starting point. The way in which we view any given situation often determines what is possible.  Consider your usual starting point…do you start from scarcity or abundance? The disciples start from scarcity.  They seem aware of the inadequacy of their resources and…

    The Gift Time wants to show you a different country.  It’s the one that your life conceals, the one waiting outside when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at in her crochet design, the one almost found over at the edge of the music, after the sermon. It’s the way life is, and you have it, a few years given. You get killed now and then, violated in various ways. (And sometimes it’s turn about.”) You get…

In this picture you see Pastor Matt and a friend named Sean having a conversation over pizza.  These two friends have known each other quite some time.  Often Pastor Matt will contact Sean to seek his wisdom. Reflect on a tension that you are holding in your life today.  Who is a wise person that you might you seek to have a conversation with about that today?

This Week’s Habit of the Heart: An Ability to Hold Tension in Life-Giving Ways Our biblical text this week will be Mark 6.30-44.  Read this story of abundance and to hold an image you receive as you move through your week. “An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways: Our inner and outer lives are filled with contradictions—from the gap between our own behavior and our aspirations to the information and ideas we cannot abide because they run counter to…

“Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16 What does “the throne” look like for you?

The Hebrew Bible is primarily the narrative of a community making and breaking its covenant with God.  The NT affirms that the capacity to join with others in a life of prayer and service is one test of receiving God’s spirit….And from the heart of my own spiritual experience, I know that God is constantly moving within and among us, calling us back to that unity, that wholeness, in which we were created.  (from The Promise of Paradox by Parker…