Benediction: Love and Serve With Body, Mind & Spirit (based on Luke 10:27)

We are called to love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds. We are likewise called to serve by loving God’s creation and all that lives within it.

So may our hearts be open and overflowing with compassion. May we be conduits of God’s limitless love and each do our part to bring the kingdom here to earth as it is in heaven.

Responsive Call To Worship: One Body, Many Parts (based on Romans 12:3-6)

Reader: The human body is made up of many parts which are mutually dependent on one another.
All: In the same way we, as children of the one creator God, all belong to one another.

Reader: When we realize this and live it out, we relate to one another in compassion and kindness.
All: The goodness of the divine in us recognizes and honors the goodness of the divine in others.

Reader: This is where we see God - in the ordinary compassion we share with the people around us ...
All: ... in the hug of a friend or the embrace of a family member, as we extend kindness to another human being who is hurting.

Reader: May this helps us to be aware that God’s compassion is constantly surrounding us.
All: So let's give thanks together for the amazing web of grace and love to the one who is its source.

Reflection and Renewal: We've Kept Our Hearts, Hands & Minds Firmly Closed (based on James 1:27)

God,

Your grace and mercy are endless. In contrast, we confess that - all too often - we have kept our hearts, hands and minds firmly closed.

Forgive us for when our own wants and desires have been all that we pay attention to, making us blind and deaf to the needs and concerns of others.  Forgive us for when we live only for material comfort and status while excluding and disadvantaging others.

Forgive us for the way that we let fear and greed keep us from caring for those around us that are in need. Forgive us for when we don’t move beyond charity to the ongoing, difficult and often inconvenient work
of seeking justice that you've said is required of us.

Help us move past our self-centeredness. Help us grow into living out the hope and generosity of your Kingdom, where all are welcome.

Amen.

4 Ways The Church Can Make Good Art Again - David Ryan Gutierrez in Relevant Magazine

Real talk: there is very little about the modern evangelical church that is creative. And this is a huge problem.

The church was once the workshop for the greatest art the world has ever known. Past tense.

Many churches are no longer seeking to create unique encounters with God. Instead, we’re often settling for following a successful model from CD's, books or personalities.

Real talk: there is very little about the modern evangelical church that is creative. And this is a huge problem.

1. Embrace The Crazy Beauty of Artists. Most of us can’t hear the music anymore. We’ve grown creatively deaf. So when faced with an artist who can still hear their internal song loud and clear, it’s easy for us to assume they’re crazy.

Artists can be a challenge to work with. They’re an emotional crowd. But that’s only because they’re more in tune with their emotional spectrum than most. That’s how God designed them. And because of that, artists can give language and vision to our deepest emotions. When we reach the end of our limited emotional bandwidth, artists take us further.

2. Demand A Higher Standard. While art is subjective by nature, there are elements that are objectively good or bad. An out-of-tune note is displeasing to the ear. Wooden dramatic performances are uncomfortable to watch. Poor writing fails to engage the mind.

The Church is, of course, meant to be a place of support and encouragement. However, we have to be careful that we don’t extend this to a point that costs us objectively good art.

3. Refuse Mimicry. If the Church is going to re-establish itself as a birthplace for creativity, it has to take a stand against mimicry. Imitation may be the greatest form of flattery, but when our efforts end at imitation, we've missed an opportunity to grow.

It’s certainly easier. It’s safer. But it’s wrong. With so many new songs to write, new sermons to speak and new pieces to perform, why would we ever settle for the art that’s already been created?

4. Take Risks. Standing on the front lines of a revolution will always carry with it greater risk. Many of us who take up the charge as creative leaders will find ourselves taking the first shots from the opposition.

Great art is an investment of self and soul. Any investor will tell you that the greater the risk, the greater the reward. Artfully leading people into the story of Christ is a risky endeavor.

But that’s only because there’s no greater reward than inspiring creation to return to its Creator.

The full article is available here

Benediction: Active Vision of the Kingdom of God (based on Ephesians 4:4-6)

The love of God - which Jesus made known - helps us to sense the Spirit anywhere and everywhere.  This love is intended for all, boldly claiming that the whole world is God’s work-space. Just as Jesus welcomed the marginalized, the excluded, and the dehumanized, God's love removes barriers so that life and grace can pour out in abundance.  

This active vision of the inclusive and beautifully diverse kingdom of God is the agenda of those of us who follow Christ. May we work for the restoration and redemption of the entire world, which God created, called “good,” and inhabits.

Reflection and Renewal: Not Living and Giving Abundant Life (based on John 10:10)

God, your grace and love strives to bring forth abundant life. When that fullness is thwarted by forces of oppression, self-centeredness, and greed, your spirit is heard in the groaning of all creation for peace and wholeness.

Sometimes we are unintentionally complicit - by proxy - in the wrongs done in your world. Sometimes we have remained on the sidelines when you have called us to be conduits of grace. Sometimes we resist letting your love lead us beyond our fear. And sometimes - even when we are trying our best to live and give abundant life - we don't get it right. 

So we come asking for forgiveness and healing.

Help us to surrender the narrow lenses which limit our vision. Help us to see the world as you do and help us to listen for your everyday nudges with open ears, hearts, and minds.

Amen

Responsive Call To Worship: God's Goodness (based on Psalm 66)

Reader: God, we gather together to remember and to give you thanks.
All: Countless generations have experienced your loving guidance and blessing.

Reader: God, we gather together to rejoice in how we experience you here and now.
All: We celebrate and give thanks for God’s continuing grace and mercy.

Reader: God, we gather together in hope and faith, waiting and expecting.
All: Help us to find you in all of life. Hear us as we offer our thanks and
praise for your steadfast love, mercy and grace poured out to each generation.

Seeing Jesus Through The Tear Gas Smoke - Viviana Cornejo in Do Justice!

If Christians aren't applying the Gospel to situations that create marginalization and oppression in our backyards, then the Gospel isn't being lived. Period.

In this interview from the Reformed African American Network, the interviewer asks a Reformed pastor in Ferguson: “Why are African Americans so upset?”

Her answer? African-American lives are consistently devalued. African Americans in Ferguson feel betrayed by the police, the very people who are supposed to protect them. They’re tired of seeing the same story play itself out over and over again.

This reminds me of something that my friend Mike is always saying: "Reconciliation with indigenous peoples is about the integrity of the church." If Christians aren't applying the Gospel to situations that create marginalization and oppression in our backyards, then the Gospel isn't being lived. Period.

As Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile writes, “We want a living, breathing, risk-taking brotherhood in the Gospel lived out where it matters. Until evangelicalism can muster that kind of courage and abandon its privileged, “objective,” distant calls for calm and “gospel”-this or “gospel”-that, it proves itself entirely inadequate for a people who need to see Jesus through the tear gas smoke of injustice.”

What’s interesting about all this is that we’re only talking about two ethnic groups in Ferguson. If we start digging just little more - no need to go much deeper - think about all the 57,000 children who are crossing the USA's southern border.  The devaluing of their lives keeps us from seeing these children at the border in the same light as we see whoever in our family first landed on these shores.

The church should have a voice against these systemic forms of racism, not a passive one, but one that is active and loud enough that everybody can hear. The church is called to go against the current, to speak and be justice where there’s injustice. Why the church is so afraid to do that? Have we forgotten its purpose and reason? Jesus was rejected, criticized, and even murdered because he pointed the finger where it hurts.

Words have their place. Here we are, writing words. Words can change attitudes, bring awareness, start conversations, change conversations. We believe words have power. But how are we standing with our racialized sisters and brothers in the places of their pain? How are we putting ourselves on the line? If we aren't putting ourselves on the line, perhaps it's the integrity of the Church that's on the line.

The full article is available here

The Sabbath = Withdrawing - Walter Brueggeman