'Grace' Tagged Posts
Toward Sunday
This week we move into a new worship series… “Christian? It’s complicated.” The cultural connotations of being Christian can make it a struggle to claim our faith in public. Some of us become secretive about our church and faith. This five-week worship series will invite reflection on the complexities of claiming Christian faith in our day. rooted in Grace. It’s complicated. Mark 1:9-11 growing in faith. It’s complicated. Mark 10:17-31 reaching in love. It’s complicated. Mark 10:35-45 Baptism. Mark 10:46-52/Galatians 3:27-29…
Toward Sunday
We are so grateful for our worship yesterday and celebration of the historic Supreme Court decision to support marriage equality. All means all. Amen. We conclude our three-week worship series this week on Prayer. It is based on two books: Help, Thanks, Wow The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott and Prayer Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster. This series comes from the desires expressed in so many of our Deep Commitments regarding prayer. While we may…
Holy persons
Parker Palmer shares a story about one of God’s children like this. “On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks – an African American woman who was a seamstress and in her early 40’s – did something she was not supposed to do; she sat down at the front of a bus in one of the seats reserved for whites – a dangerous, daring and provocative act in a racist society. Legend has it that, years later, a graduate…
Baptism
“Baptism is an act that looks back with gratitude on what God’s grace has already accomplished, it is here and now an act of God’s grace, and it looks forward to what God’s grace will accomplish in the future….Baptism anticipates a lifetime of further and deeper experiences of God, further acts of Christian commitment, and ministries in the world.” (United Methodist Book of Worship pg. 81) How often do you remember your baptism? What about your baptism has been meaningful…
Rooted in Grace
AFTER CENTURIES OF handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s much interested any more. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left. Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or…
Toward Sunday
We begin a new worship series this Sunday called How Deep? Our church continues to grow in number and depth because of the deep commitments of so many. Each fall we devote an entire worship series to reflecting on the depth of the commitment we would like to make to God & our church for the coming year. We will focus each of the first three weeks on the simple (artisan) ingredients that frame our life together: rooted in Grace, growing in…
The way ahead
“The way unfolds like an open hand. The way unfolds like I didn’t plan. And only in looking back do we understand, That the way was true as an open hand…. This song is one that I play often when I walk in the early morning hours. The Table @ Central UMC has unfolded in ways that I never dreamed. Often I am asked “how did you do it?” and I know that the answer is closer to this song…
Hope of Heaven
How silly: we stand on the porch of heaven a little uneasy, though eager, too, the heartfelt invitation in our hands, briefly admiring the pearly gates— amazing, really, the pearl, the craft, the lucent colors purling up the columns, the welcome warmth wafting from within— but then we turn to the hope at hand… and so— how silly, and how sad: we stand and fumble for the keys, and rummage anxiously, and dig around forever, searching, failing, grasping more, our…
Swim Strong
Swim Strong is a program in New York City. Watch this short video to learn about the joy of coming alongside another who needs your help. Consider your life this week. What is something you could teach another person to do? How might reaching in love with a skill you have save the life of your neighbor? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3BO2Ki85Vg]
Communion
Sometimes movies make things easier for me to understand. One of the best moments in my movie going life happened in the movie “Places in the heart”. This movie is set in the Depression in the 1930’s in the South. A widow (played by Sally Field) and 3 children struggle to make a living from their cotton field. The film has many complex relationships that reflect the cultural, racial and gender struggles of America. The Grace of God is made…