Archive

This week in worship, we will continue to celebrate the beginnings of the church at Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit to God’s people. Just as at the first Pentecost, we’ll watch for signs in our midst that God is making it possible to bridge divides between us. We’ll pay attention for how […]

This week at Common Table, Jim Phillips, chair of the church’s Finance committee, explained the extent of our budget shortfalls. For our current fiscal year, we anticipate that our expenses will exceed our income. For the coming six-month period from July 1-December 31, 2019, we foresee another deficit. To make ends meet, we have borrowed […]

This week, we’ll celebrate the end of our mini-Stewardship campaign. We’ll celebrate the ways we have been able to support our staff and our mission in this place through giving of our time and treasure and talents. Mostly though, we’ll work with the connection between stewardship and love. For those who have been reading McLaren, […]

Our God is the God of liberation. We are partners in the work of the God of liberation! From the time of the Israelites in Egypt, to the time of Paul and Silas in prison in Phillipi, God has been liberating and setting free God’s people. As we move forward together in this partnership with […]

It’s been a little more than two weeks since our vote to join the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN). Those two weeks have been action-packed, with Easter and so much more. However that doesn’t mean that nothing’s happened since the vote. The committee that has been called the Considering Reconciling Committee (CRC) began work almost immediately […]

In Brian McLaren’s book, We Make the Road by Walking, we read Chapter 26 this week. In the chapter, McLaren relates a fictitious conversation between himself and one of Jesus’ followers, a woman on the edges of the crowd. He asks her if she ever has doubts about Jesus’ message. She replies, Sometimes I think […]

This Sunday we read together Chapter 31 in Brian McLaren’s book this week in which he explores Jesus’ famous sermon and translates it into modern language. One line in McLaren’s version, “Dare to be a nonconformist by being boldly different, like salt and light in the world. Demonstrate your differentness through works of generosity and […]

As I write this, the snow is coming down outside and it’s been coming down for almost 24 hours. The kids and dogs in the park are having a great time and my snowy-day instincts are kicking in. I grew up mostly in Idaho and Iowa. I lived for my young adult years in Chicago. […]

Jesus was no mathematician. Jesus helped us to understand the nature of God in relationship, as one person of the Trinity, one part of a triune God. One in three and three in one doesn’t make sense according to our normal number sense. It only makes sense within the nature of God. Jesus’ teachings are […]

“Give us this day our daily bread.”  There it is right in the Lord’s Prayer.  We do not live without sustenance. Is food then a human right? How then do so many go hungry in the world’s richest country? Jesus said those words before the Last Supper, when he forever transformed the meaning of bread […]