'growing in faith' Tagged Posts (Page 10)
After the Storm
The parable of The Prodigal Son http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSLsUS29UiM The son: And after the storm, I run and run as the rains come And I look up, I look up, on my knees and out of luck, I look up. Night has always pushed up day You must know life to see decay But I won’t rot, I won’t rot Not this mind and not this heart, I won’t rot. God: And I took you by the hand And we stood tall,…
The Prodigal Son playlist
This week as our community lives with the parable of the Prodigal Son we offer you a musical lectio based on songs from the group Mumford & Sons. The original idea came from a blog by Todd Rossnagel if you would like to listen to this in one setting. It will take you 30 minutes. Or you may break it up in parts each day as we share the music through youtube versions. If you have your own recordings you…
Toward Sunday
We are nearing the end our worship series Give Up Certainty for Lent: Live in the Parables of Jesus. This Sunday is Palm Sunday and our worship will be rooted in the parable of The Prodigal Son. The following week, we will celebrate Holy Week with worship in the evening on both Thursday (April 17) and Friday (April 18). Maundy Thursday will be at 6-7:15pm in Fellowship Hall. This will be a family friendly service of music and prayer stations focused on Jesus’ Last…
We’re all in this together.
Elie Wiesel is known to have said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” In our efforts to resist being actively self-righteous like the Pharisee, may we also pay attention to the self-righteousness of our blindness to others. Remember — we’re all in this together.
Toward Sunday
The parables of Jesus take everyday experiences from the time of Jesus and turn them upside down. By showing us ordinary elements and experiences, parables provide a transparency to see the whole of our live and the holy in our lives in a new way (from John Indermark, Parables and Passion, Jesus’ stories for the days of Lent, page 11). This week our worship will be rooted in Luke 18.9-14 Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. It is hard…
Laborers in the Vineyard
“Matthew’s perspective calls for Christians to understand themselves as belonging to a community, so that no decision is purely personal and individual. Matthew’s perspective calls for Christians to understand their lives as being lived in the light of the present and coming kingdom of God, which represents a reversal of cultural values rather than their confirmation. Thus the individual teachings of Matthew’s Gospel cannot be understood on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, unless and until one is converted to the Gospel’s ecclesial…
Parables
“Maybe Jesus is saying: … Throw yourself into what you love or simply what you do. Let God sort out the rest. It’s not your problem, and that’s a gift unto itself. And if you should happen to find yourself on the wanting end of what’s deserved, God’s loving hand extended is gift indeed. But even more radical than this message of God’s generosity, perhaps, is a quiet, secondary message of these parables, as understated as their responsible characters. Namely,…
Toward Sunday
We are inviting our community to Give Up Certainty for Lent as we root ourselves in the parables of Jesus. We move into our fourth week and the parable of The Laborers in the Vineyard. What is a parable? Exact definitions vary from “stories of life with religious or spiritual lessons” to “metaphors or similes that take narrative form.” We will be operating on an understanding of parables as “thin places” where the usual boundaries between heaven and earth,…
Parables
“…Jesus’ parables of judgment…are about an action going somewhere to happen. They are not about a system of static recurrences in which time goes on forever-where there is always, by the rules of the system, time for a second chance at everything. They do not allow you the luxury of a historical perspective in which a step taken too soon or a move made too late can always be remedied the next time around. Rather, they are about a world…
Prayer
Rescue me, O God, from the foolishness of presuming to know what I do not know. Save me from failing to trust whom I can trust. Allow your comfort to enter me. Help me prepare for you as you are and will be. Amen. (based on a prayer by John Indermark from Parables and Passion p. 77)
Giving up certainty
“In these times I don’t, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don’t want what I know and want what I don’t know.” ~Marsilio Ficino from The Letters of Marsilio Ficino vol. 3
Toward Sunday
We are inviting our community to Give Up Certainty for Lent as we root ourselves in the parables of Jesus. We move into our third week and the Parable of The Wise & Foolish Bridesmaids. What is a parable? Exact definitions vary from “stories of life with religious or spiritual lessons” to “metaphors or similes that take narrative form.” We will be operating on an understanding of parables as “thin places” where the usual boundaries between heaven and earth, holy and…