Easter Sunday - Ashamed No More: Surprised by Resurrection

On this Easter Sunday, we complete our exploration into the theme of salvation from the perspective of honor and shame, in which we have sought to develop a different perspective from a more western perspective of judgment and guilt.  Ashamed No More throughout Lent examined how we might understand God's grace and mercy differently, how we might understand salvation differently as we examine these through the lens of honor and shame.  Now on Easter Sunday we are Surprised by Resurrection.

 

Connect to Ashamed No More: Surprised by Resurrection.  Not only are we surprised by resurrection, just as the early disciples were, in being surprised by resurrection, and in being open to the new creation it creates, we discover that we become, through Christ Jesus, the surprises of God in the world.  

Fourth Sunday of Lent - Ashamed No More: Grace that is Wasted

On this Fourth Sunday of Lent we continue our exploration into the theme of salvation from the perspective of honor and shame, rather than from a more western perspective of judgment and guilt.  Ashamed No More throughout Lent examines how we might understand God's grace and mercy differently, how we might understand salvation differently as we examine these through the lens of honor and shame.  

 

Connect to Ashamed No More: Grace that is Wasted.  This week's message focuses upon how God "wastes" grace on us.  Not in the perspective that we are undeserving - we are.  But rather, God does not stop pouring grace out upon us - God keeps bestowing grace upon us so that it overflows our lives - i.e., God wastes grace on us in order for us to have an abundant experience of grace in our lives.  

First Sunday of Lent - Ashamed No More: God Will Show Us Salvation

On this First Sunday of Lent we begin an exploration into the theme of salvation from the perspective of honor and shame, rather than from a more western perspective of judgment and guilt.  Ashamed No More throughout Lent examines how we might understand God's grace and mercy differently, how we might understand salvation differently as we examine these through the lens of honor and shame.  

 

Connect to Ashamed No More: God Will Show Us Salvation.  This week's message focuses upon how living our lives in Christ is to be open to God's work in us, to be open to the honor God bestows upon us and God through Christ Jesus takes upon himself our shame.  And instead of living lives of shame we are set free in Christ to live lives of shalom.  

On this Fourth Sunday after Epiphany we continue our series on Encountering God.  The season of Epiphany focuses on Jesus Christ being revealed to the world - particularly through the Magi - and now today, through us.  Throughout Epiphany we are exploring how, in our encountering God, we manifest the life and ministry of Jesus, how we go about demonstrating the presence of God in the places we work and live among the persons we engage in our day to day lives.  

 

Connect to Encountered by God's Embrace: God Birthed in Us - Fulfillers of God's Word.  This week's message focuses upon how like Christ we live fulfilling the word of God in our lives.  As we reflect upon how God's Word - God's Story and Vision forms and shapes us, how it transforms us, we realize that in embodying God's Word in our lives - we live as ones who fulfill the purposes of God's word in our human contexts.  

Second Sunday After Epiphany: Encountered by God's Embrace - Sharing Gifts Which Reveal God

On this Second Sunday after Epiphany we continue our series on Encountering God.  The season of Epiphany focuses on Jesus Christ being revealed to the world - particularly through the Magi - and now today, through us.  Throughout Epiphany we are exploring how, in our encountering God, we manifest the life and ministry of Jesus, how we go about demonstrating the presence of God in the places we work and live among the persons we engage in our day to day lives.  

 

Connect to Encountered by God's Embrace: Sharing Gifts Which Reveal God.  This week's message focuses upon the outpouring of Spirit given gifts which manifest the presence and love of God in the world.  Too often we think of engaging in ministry for the left-over hours of our weeks - the hours we give to volunteering.  But we are called to be about sharing God's love and presence and making disciples not in the left-over hours of our week, but rather in the 100+ hours in our week in which we are working, being with family, doing what we do with the main hours of our lives.  It is in these times we minister in the power of the Spirit with Spirit-given gifts through which we reveal God's love for the world.  

First Sunday after Epiphany: Encountering God in Our Baptism - Being at Home with God and Revealing God's Presence

On this First Sunday after Epiphany we begin our new series on Encountering God.  The season of Epiphany focuses on Jesus Christ being revealed to the world - particularly through the Magi - and now today, through us.  Throughout Epiphany we are exploring how, in our encountering God, we manifest the life and ministry of Jesus, how we go about demonstrating the presence of God in the places we work and live among the persons we engage in our day to day lives.  

 

Connect to Being at Home with God: Revealing God's Presence.  This week's message focuses upon God's love for us is revealed in God creating us, naming us and being with us.  As the people of God we do not merely grasp hold of God's love for ourselves, but we reveal and demonstrate God's love for the world by living in ways which make God's presence known in our worlds.  

Fourth Sunday of Advent: Carried on a Flood of Reversal - From Insignificant Things

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent we continue focusing upon the floods of difficulties that overwhelm our lives, but equally we can experience the flood of God's grace and mercy.  Throughout Advent we our prayer is to receive God's overwhelming presence in the midst of our difficulties. 

Connect to Carried on a Flood of Reversal: From Insignificant Things.  This week's message focuses upon the reality that evil does not have the last word.  In the midst of a world filled with sorrow and injustice, God sends a flood of reversal to make things right, especially those who have been trampled upon: mercy for the poor, the hungry, the lowly.  Our Scripture passages reveal that God conquers evil from insignificant places, through insignificant persons, as revealed by Bethlehem and Mary.