The Thirst For Encounter - Kayla McClurg in Inward/Outward

To meet one another beyond surface identities, to share our thirst, is to discover who we are, more than creed or race or condition.

Even all the new and improved, enlightened “shoulds and should nots” we have created as antidote to the old oppressions, even these do not fulfill us. Try as we might to be satisfied, we never will find fulfillment by keeping rules or even by doing good work for good causes. The fight against racism and economic disparity and poverty and all manner of injustice is simply the response we make to the God we love.

But what we long for most deeply? It is to wake up to wonder. In Mary Oliver’s words, it is “to be a bride married to amazement.” Married not to many rules, or many causes, but to the depths of encounter.

Here, alongside the Samaritan woman, we see that to meet one another beyond surface identities, to share our thirst, is to discover who we are, more than creed or race or condition. We are vessels for amazement, created for communion, for wellsprings of wonder to flow fresh and free.

The full article is available here

The Earth Without Art

Benediction: Life Itself Is Grace (based on Romans 8:28)

Life has both ups and downs. There are twists and turns in the road which each of us travels. But no matter where life takes us or what comes across our paths, we can be count on the unfathomable love of God.

May we look for it wherever we are on our journey. Life itself - and those who travel it with us - are God's grace to us. So may we go with confidence to love and serve God and others.

Church Music Needs New Vocabulary – Richard Kentopp in Hopeful Realism

“You’re a giving member; you’re a leader at this church. I don’t really care what you think of our music. But I want you to tell me if you think it's not going to connect with your friends or your coworkers, then you can give me critique and I’ll listen to it.”

What I think has been lost, and one reason why the church in general is hemorrhaging young people, is our ability to make music that makes sense both musically and lyrically to young people.

"Praise & Worship" music makes sense to people who grew up listening to “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” & “Heart of Worship.” But from a very young age, a lot of Christians, myself included, didn't connect with “youth group music.”

There are plenty of people that need to be given the vocabulary with which to worship God, and have a hard time singing those songs (for perfectly legitimate spiritual reasons).

The church has done a pretty poor job giving outsiders a chance to connect. I always try to plan for our worship gatherings from the perspective of someone having their very first worship gathering experience.

What I’ve found is that success lies in getting the people who have been coming forever to come around to that understanding.

I often say to them, “You’re a giving member; you’re a leader at this church. I don’t really care what you think of our music. But I want you to tell me if you think it's not going to connect with your friends or your coworkers, then you can give me critique and I’ll listen to it.”

We’re on a mission. I’m not here to provide an emotional experience on Sundays, I’m there to help connect people to God and connect them to each other. Emotions will inevitably happen.

The full article is available here

Responsive Call to Worship: Finding God In Times of Trouble (based on Lamentations 3:22-24)

     Longing To Be Loved - Unknown

Reader: God, we need to remember that your love is bottomless.
All: Your mercy doesn't fade-out.

Reader:There's no bottom of the barrel when it comes to your grace.
All: Help us to remember this and to remind each other of it, especially when it feels least true.

Reader: When doubt, fear, and every kind of trouble surrounds us, we often wish to escape.
All: But God, these times do not mean that we are alone. You remain within and around us.

Reader: When we begin to look for you with this in mind, we then begin to see you everywhere.
All: It's because of this tenacious, messy, real-life love for us that we feel the need to give praise.

Reader: God, thank you for those who are your hands and feet to us.
All: Thank you for the privilege of being your hands and feet to others.

Reader: The joy and gratitude we feel for the way that you provide for us is overflowing.
All: This is the reason that we sing and give praise.

Reflection and Renewal: Finding God In Times of Trouble (based on Lamentations 3:22-24)

     Longing To Be Loved - Unknown

God, your love is endless. Your mercy doesn't fade-out and there's no bottom of the barrel when it comes to your grace.

Help us to remember this and to remind each other of it, especially when it feels least true.  When doubt, fear, and every kind of trouble surrounds us, we often wish to escape.  

But God, these times do not mean that we are alone. You remain within and around us. If we keep that in mind as we seek glimpses of grace, we can begin to see you everywhere. 

God, thank you for those who are your hands and feet to us. Thank you for the privilege of being your hands and feet to others.

Amen.

One Year In: The Joyful Surprise of Pope Francis - Jim Wallis in Sojourner's

Are we ready to love, embrace, forgive, and show mercy as Jesus would have us do and Francis has tried to exemplify? Are we ready to stand with and give our lives for the poor and call the global economy not just to charity, but to justice?

Everything Francis is saying and doing is aimed at pressing this question: Are Christians going to follow Jesus or not? That should be the question on the first anniversary of this new pope. Are we Christians ready and willing to follow Jesus? How can we then serve the world?

Are we ready to love, embrace, forgive, and show mercy as Jesus would have us do and Francis has tried to exemplify? Are we ready to stand with and give our lives for the poor and call the global economy not just to charity, but to justice? Are we willing to take “a preferential option for the poor,” as Catholic social teaching describes it, the way Francis has and apply it to both our personal and public lives?

Pope Francis has lifted up the priority of the poor in ways that are challenging the world from the top to the bottom. I had a meeting with Jim Yong Kim this week, the president of the World Bank. Kim, who has already met with Pope Francis, said that preferential option for the poor is his driving motivation as a “banker,” which is changing the mission of the World Bank. I heard a top political operative on the “religious right” say on a national news show that Pope Francis has placed the poor at the center of the gospel where they belong. My question to the powerful broker would have been, “How is that going the change your life and your public policy commitments?”

The full article is available here

Predestination is Bad Theorizing - Frederick Buechner

Love Anything And Your Will Be Wrung And Possibly Broken - C.S. Lewis