"Faith Without Works Is Awesome," Says Seattle Man - Lark News

After cramming his calendar with volunteer events for the last six years, Al Simpson finally quit all ministry activity and discovered that “doing nothing for the Lord feels way better than I expected.”

Simpson still enjoys daily time with the Lord and Bible reading. But he now refuses to lift a finger for the gospel and says no to every request to serve.

“Faith without works is an amazing lifestyle,” he says. “A little piece of me comes back to life every time I tell someone, ‘No, thanks. Find someone else.’”

The full article is available here

Was There Really "No Room in the Inn"? - Mario Seiglie

A more authentic cultural understanding enhances the meaning of the story, rather than diminishing it.

We’ve grown up hearing the account that the “inn” in Bethlehem was full, with no “room” available, so Joseph and Mary ended up in a stable, with Jesus Christ born and laid in a manger there.

This image has been used to promote the typical Christmas nativity scene for generations. Yet a careful analysis of the biblical text reveals quite a different story!

This is important, because a more authentic cultural understanding enhances the meaning of the story, rather than diminishing it.

A typical translation of Luke 2:7 says about Mary giving birth to Jesus, “And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” 

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word translated “inn” here is kataluma. It means a place of rest, usually a guest room. In fact, the same writer Luke uses this very word later where it clearly refers to a guest room and not an inn.

Furthermore, Luke elsewhere in his Gospel uses a different Greek word when he writes about an actual inn. 

While Jesus was conceived of God the Father through the Holy Spirit, his was nonetheless a typical birth for the common man of his day. Though God, he truly came as one of us.

Jesus was rejected at his birth by Herod, but the Bethlehem shepherds welcomed him with great joy, as did the common people in later years. The city of David was true to its own, and the village community provided for him. He was born among them, in the natural setting of the birth of any village boy, surrounded by helping hands and encouraging women's voices.

For centuries Palestinian peasants have been born on the raised terraces of the one-room family homes. The birth of Jesus was no different. His incarnation was authentic. His birth most likely took place in the natural place for a peasant to be born; in a peasant home.

The full article is available here

Chanukah & Christmas As We Approach Trump Presidency - Rabbi Michael Lerner

Reflection and Renewal: Not Pursuing or Believing In Peace (based on Isaiah 9:6)

God,

The birth of Jesus is an amazing reminder of how much you celebrate and value the world which you created. Thank you for your endless and all-encompassing love.

The angels who announced Jesus' birth sang of that love, which they proclaimed as a message of "peace on earth and goodwill to all."

But if we're honest, we need to confess that sometimes we don't think much beyond our own narrow interests. We all too easily fall into the trap of looking out for #1 and thinking that your world is one where we need to compete with our neighbor to get ahead.

Instead of taking the posture of sacrificial love - which brings about the kind of peace the angels sang about and Jesus taught - we try to achieve peace for ourselves through strength, power, and status.

Other times, we give up hope that peace and goodwill are even possible.  When we see the need and brokeness around us, we can become despairing and cynical.  We must confess that we often lack faith in your promises and your design for abundant life.

We need your help. Keep us open.  Keep us hoping.  Teach us to rest in you.

Amen.

The Song 'Mary Did You Know' Misses What The Magnificat Is About - Jeff Wiersma

Based on the text of the Magnificat, it sure seems like Mary knew, which would render the song 'Mary Did You Know' moot. 

In addition to that, the lyrics of 'Mary Did You Know' glosses over the subversive social message Mary sings of in the Magnificat.  

As Nadia Bolz Weber writes in Preaching The Whole Magnificat:

"Mary's song isn’t a docile picture of obedience singing about how great it is to be pregnant. Mary is singing of nothing less than complete overturning of the social and economic order.

You see, there’s a reason why the Magnificat is said to have terrified the Russian Czars. Because, the message is that if you find yourself rich and powerful then … watch out! This young little Jewish girl is not singing about a whole lot of good news for you."

Responsive Call To Worship: God Is The Creative Spark of All Life (based on Isaiah 6:3)

Reader: God is the creative spark of new life. 

All: We have come seeking God in this new day.

Reader: God, you are the architect of life and wholeness.
All: Open our souls to your stirring.

Reader: Spirit, you are the creator of awe and beauty.
All: Open our eyes to your ever-surrounding presence.

Reader: Jesus, you are the one through whom everything came into existence.
All: Open our hearts to your love.

Reader: Everything that God creates is good.
The entire universe is filled with God’s goodness.
All: For this endless, all-surrounding grace, we rejoice and give thanks.

Benediction: Trusting God's Presence When We God Feels Absent (based on Psalm 13:5)

God, help us not to completely lose hope when we experience those times in life when you seem far away or when our walk through this world is difficult or feels lonely.

Give us grace to trust your indwelling and all-surrounding presence, especially when it feels like you're not there.

Likewise, help us to be the grace of your presence to those around us who aren't feeling you near, who are experiencing difficulty, or who feel all alone.

God Is Not "In Control" - Faith Forward at Patheos

It’s a problematic theology that’s not truly helpful.

To all my fellow Christian who find solace in saying/believing that “God’s in control” .... and try to use that belief to bring comfort to people who are hurting, grieving, and/or suffering people ... I respectfully encourage you to stop.

Stop needing God to be in control. Even if you only mean well in believing and saying it ... it’s a problematic theology that’s not truly helping you or others.

But why? Five reasons come to mind:

• We use this in a theologically inconsistent way. It’s really hard to avoid implying that God causes numerous atrocities while saying God is in control. No matter how many times you defend the sentiment with “God’s ways are not ours” or “we can’t see the whole picture,” you’ve made a theological choice.
• We say it because we’re scared, not because it’s true. We need to listen to our anxiety, not ignore it. “God is in control” is like a drug, distracting us from potentially solvable problems rather than leading us to courageously face them.
• God’s upset by injustice. I have a hard time believing God is cool and calm when violence, hatred, and oppression rear their ugly heads. I think God is pissed. But I also believe God is more like a caring, attentive and responsive parent then a stoic, hard-ass one.
• It’s patriarchal. The notion of a controlling God, where nothing out of God’s will is taking place, sounds like a relic of the days of kings. This is the God of slave-owners and abusive men, not the God of lighthearted but weepy, fiery but gentle, confident but teachable, foot-washing but foot-washed Jesus.
• It creates passivity. The “God is in control” narrative is silencing. It’s the kind of thing the oppressors tell the oppressed to maintain the status quo: just accept your suffering, God has a reason for this. What a horrible lie.

God has graced humans with creativity and passion and a longing for justice. If our theology silences these impulses—as I believe a theology of divine control does—it needs to be rejected, because it is allowing not good but evil to flourish under the guise of “God’s plan.”

The full article is available here

What Do Pipelines have to do with the Doctrine of Discovery? Do Justice

We've forgotten the wisdom of the ancient Hebrews, our ancestors of the faith, who understood that the created world is inherently sacred and pulses with the divine.
 
In 1493, Pope Alexander VI declared that any land not inhabited by Christians was free for the new generation of European explorers to take at will. History would remember this declaration as the third of three papal bulls that make up the Doctrine of Discovery, the legal and ecclesiastical justification for centuries of European theft of Native lands and genocide of Native peoples—imperialism baptized in the language of Christian mission.

The brutality and imperialism sanctioned by the Doctrine of Discovery is papered over in U.S. textbooks, glimpsed only in short units on the Trail of Tears or the massacre at Wounded Knee.

It's not hard to see this legacy playing itself out today. The exploitation and abuse rubber-stamped by the Doctrine of Discovery and played out in the rampant imperialism of the “Age of Exploration” is alive and well in the hearts and minds of Western economic, cultural, and political institutions today.

The Western imagination has been utterly colonized by the cold calculus of Discovery, convincing us that the earth is nothing more than inert raw material meant to fire our industrial machines and that non-white lives matter only if they can be assimilated into dominant Western culture to fuel ever more exploitation; of ever more “discovery”.

We have forgotten the wisdom of the ancient Hebrews, our ancestors of the faith, who understood that the created world is inherently sacred and pulses with the divine. Dismissed is the spirituality of Indigenous communities who recognize humanity’s place inside of, and dependent upon, the great web of beings.

The full article is available here

What The 2016 Election Revealed - Jeff Wiersma

The church's role in this time will be imperative.  It must contribute to a shared vision which rejects Religious Nationalism, Hate Speech Demagoguery, and Economic Darwinism - showing the way instead to expressions of social justice, compassion, empathy, and radical solidarity.  

The 2016 Election was not your run-of-the-mill Presidential Election.

As Andy Borowitz said, "Trump wasn’t created in a vacuum; he is the inevitable product of a coarsened culture that rewards bullying over kindness, humiliation over respect, hatred over love."

Meanwhile, his opponent was the 2nd member of Clinton Political Machine (preceded by Al Gore in 2000) to run a campaign that only compounded their likability problems and ultimately resulted in the election of an inferior Republican candidate.

Sociologically, this election has revealed the following:

• Technological changes combined with corporate global bottom-feeding, 36 years of voodoo economics, and hyper-capitalist financialization have left working people behind, who feel betrayed, unrecognized, and angry.

• Rhetoric about progressive social policy - policy that aims to help working people recover from the scorched-earth class war being waged against them by the 1% - falls on deaf ears when the Democratic candidate is the ultimate crony capitalist.

• The false lure of a conservative Supreme Court and single-issue voting still holds many Evangelicals hostage. They have voted Republican for this one reason - all the while supporting wars, environmental destruction, the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor - and not gotten one bit closer to overturning Roe v Wade, which was made law by a Republican-nominated Supreme Court. (And even if they did overturn it, abortion wouldn't go away without a culture that supports life).

• The public witness of Evangelical Christianity is now seriously discredited, with its most visible and cacophonous white, male leadership aligned with a political agenda antithetical to the values and life of Jesus. 

• The entrenched attitudes of racial bigotry in American society have been shamelessly exposed. 

• The decades-long pattern of manipulating racial fears, employed by the GOP beginning with their Southern strategy, now boiled over in an ugly political movement driven by resentment of those who are different. That their candidate was manifestly and dangerously unqualified didn't trump the affection that the President-elect's supporters lavished on him because he spewed hate speech at the same "other" that they've been told to hate. 

• Fears and biases have clouded attention to facts. An entire self-reinforcing network of right wing media have captured an audience by playing to fears and biases, all while using the time-tested cult tactic of warning it's adherents that they are the only source of truth and that all other media sources are lying to them and biased. 

• The white, largely male majority which controlled political power since America’s founding is losing its dominant power, provoking anxiety and political desperation among its adherents.

Within this setting, the need for public discernment and a resonant vision is paramount.

The church's role in this time will be imperative. It must contribute to a shared vision which rejects the idolatry of Religious Nationalism, Demagoguery, and Economic Darwinism - showing the way instead to expressions of social justice, compassion, empathy, radical solidarity, mercy, and righteousness "as an ever flowing stream," which is our ancient and future calling.

Benediction: Renewing Our Hearts and Minds (based on Romans 12:2)

Loving God, through the power of your Spirit, renew our hearts and minds ... so that we may give thanks for your life-giving presence and follow the example of Jesus, who served all of your creation - which you called "good" - with love.

Responsive Call To Worship: God's Blessings (based on Psalm 100)

Reader: We gather to celebrate the goodness and love of God.
All: God is faithful and just.

Reader: God's promises stand the test of time.
All: God’s grace and mercy sustain us.

Reader: God is our source of light and life.
All : For all of these blessings and more, let's share our praise and thanksgiving!

Why Many Other Christians and I Are Grieving Trump's Victory - Jeff Wiersma

It feels like our yearning for what Jesus called "shalom," our desire to live out Micah 6:8, and our allegiance to what Jesus taught in the beatitudes has been rejected by 80% of our own faith community. It feels like our core beliefs have been rejected in favor of the pursuit of power by evangelical leaders and a candidate who built his campaign by stoking fear.

I will begin with my standard 2016 election disclaimer: "I didn't vote for Hillary either. In fact, I have never voted for a Clinton."

Ok, now that we got that out of the way ... here is my best attempt to explain - to those of you in my faith community that voted for Trump - why exactly it is that many of your fellow faith community members are feeling discouraged and alienated in the wake of Trump's win.

Many people I know who voted for Trump are people I worship with each week, people whose kids hang out with my kids, people who visited me when I was in the hospital. I know them to be people with good hearts and caring souls on a personal and community level.

So with that understanding ... in the time following election day, I have been determined to keep an open mind to the possibility that many of my friends - who chose to vote in favor of Donald Trump - could have been doing so as much to cast a negative vote against Hillary for ideological reasons as they were wholeheartedly endorsing who Donald Trump is as a person.

As for more specifically political reasons that some who have supported Trump have told me where among their determining factors ...

*  The economy and Washington corruption: The upset that many Trump supporters feel with how the economic policy has played out over the last 36 years - and how crony-capitalism disadvantages 99% of the U.S. populace - is understood and shared by many of us.

* Pro Life: I understand the tenacity with which the abortion issue is reiterated in evangelical church culture and how that is often the lone issue around which many choose which candidate they will support (more on that later, or check out this link).

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But here is what I would like to ask these friends who voted for Trump - can they empathize with those of us who are devastated that Trump won and hear the reasons why? Can they see why we would be discouraged by the fact that a candidate whose values are antithetical to those Jesus lived out and taught - for which the candidate was criticized by many across different political and theological spectrums - will now be our nation's leader?

It's worth nothing that famously conservative publications like Christianity Today and World Magazine made the same critique of Trump's character deficiencies and hateful rhetoric. Conservative church leaders like Russell Moore, Max Lucado, Alan Noble, and R. Albert Mohler Jr did as well, to name but a few.

Please, try to see how it is confounding to many of us that a group of celebrity American preachers actively campaigned for Trump. They weren't merely rooting behind the scenes for "anyone but Hillary." Exasperatingly, the ethical and moral deficiencies of Trump - which they so readily shrugged off - were the very same ones that they had cited as disqualifying factors in previous candidates and presidents.

As a result, many of us feel sold out by the established Church which compromised its moral authority for the promise of power.

In addition, the perpetual insistence by Jesus that we are to "love our neighbors as ourselves" appears to have little effect in chipping away at the evangelical support of a man who degraded women based on their physical appearance and vilified entire ethnicities and faiths.

It is disheartening that a man who advocated for torture and the illegal killing of civilians during his campaign was so overwhelmingly approved of by American Christians.

Along those lines, our fear for the safety of those fellow image-bearers of Christ who comprise the "least of these" has left us shaken.

(Did this statement trigger any of you to ask the valid question, "What about abortion?" If so, I'd urge you to read "Why I'm A Pro-Life Liberal," which can be found here.)

Our fear is valid and reasonable. Trump's candidacy and rhetoric were heartily endorsed by the KKK, Neo-Nazi groups, and white supremacists. While it is true that no one can control who supports them, it is also true that those groups have felt moved to support Trump because his rhetoric often echoes and amplifies their message. That these are groups that cause harm would be grounds enough for our apprehension. That these groups do so in the name of our faith tradition is exasperating.

That the president-elect has tapped prominent white supremacist-sympathizer Steve Bannon to be his Chief Of Staff has not helped to allay our fears.

These are some of the key reasons why our lingering grief and upset is unique to this particular election. We aren't grieving that a preferred political ideology didn't win the day or that we didn't get what he want. We've all had the candidate who we preferred to see win end up losing.

This is different.

It feels like our yearning for what Jesus called "shalom," our desire to live out Micah 6:8, and our allegiance to what Jesus taught in the beatitudes has been rejected by 80% of our own faith community. It feels like our core beliefs have been rejected in favor of the pursuit of power by evangelical leaders and a candidate who built his campaign by stoking fear.

These aren't things we need to "get over" or to "stop being crybabies" about. These are serious questions about the validity of the missional priorities of the American Church and whether there's much saltiness or light left in its public witness.

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In the midst of all of this, the good news is that Jesus is already on the margins. Jesus is already present among the very people that our president-elect degrades as weak and targets with hate-speech. When we stand in solidarity with the despised and the suffering, we're standing where Jesus is already present.

Most importantly, we don't have to abandon Jesus to abandon the unholy marriage (whether of genuine affection or ideological convenience) between Donald Trump and a large segment of the American Church.

Just as we love all of humanity as instructed by our Christian faith, we love Donald Trump. Were he about to step in front of a bus, we'd pull him back to safety, etc. We hope that the light and life that we all possess inherently will come to the surface in his life.

500 Clergy Hold 'Historic' Mass Gathering for Standing Rock - Common Dreams

In a "historic" show of interfaith solidarity, 500 clergy members prayed along the banks of North Dakota's Cannonball River on Thursday in support of Indigenous peoples protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

During the day of prayer on November 03, the clergy members marched to the bridge over the Cannonball River and "ceremonially burned a copy of a 600-year-old document," AP reported. Known as the Doctrine of Discovery, "the document from the 1400s sanctioned the taking of land from Indigenous peoples."

According to the Episcopal News Service, "The interfaith group spent more than 5 hours on site, marching, singing hymns, sharing testimony, and calling others to join them in standing with the more than 200 tribes who have committed their support to the Sioux Nation as they protest the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)."

"It was very moving to be there in solidarity," said Philadelphia-based Bishop Dwayne Royster. "I wanted to be present as an African-American clergy person to let the people at Standing Rock understand that we as African Americans need them to know that we stand with them in their fight."

Similar acts of solidarity, particularly by people of faith, have grown in recent days. On Wednesday, 9 rabbis, rabbinical students, and Jewish community members were arrested in Philadelphia for staging a civil disobedience action at a downtown TD Bank, one of the biggest financiers of the pipeline project. Nearly 300 rabbis have signed a statement in opposition to Dakota Access.

The full article is available here

Listening to the Faith of Millennials - The Banner

The importance of living out an authentic faith, one that is rich and full and not tarnished by false claims and advertising slogans, was a theme that the young people spoke about during the discussion held at the Grand Rapids, Mich., office of the CRC.

Sponsored by the Great Lakes Coaching Group of Christian Reformed Home Missions, the panel was held to get a sense of how young people view the church and how the church might be able to serve their needs, said Stanley Koster, coordinator of the coaching group.

Conducted by the Barna Group and the Cornerstone Knowledge Network, the study found that millennials are highly skeptical of the traditional church and yet are hungry for transcendence.

In addition, according to the study, this group looks for people who live out, instead of simply speak about, their Christianity. In addition, they don’t see church buildings, especially soaring cathedrals, as being central to their faith.

When they do think about church structures, says the study, they like ones that are simple, honor nature, and offer space for reflection and prayer.

The importance of living out an authentic faith, one that is rich and full and not tarnished by false claims and advertising slogans, was a theme that the young people spoke about during the discussion held at the Grand Rapids, Mich., office of the CRC.

The full article is available here

What I Would Change About Our Immigration Conversation - CRC Network

So much of the conversation about immigration during this election season has not been based on facts or on the biblical value of philoxenia.

There has been much talk about immigrants—and not enough listening to immigrants themselves.

How does the immigration conversation need to change?

Four immigrants will speak up from their experience this month on Do Justice. Sign up to receive the posts in your inbox here.

Let’s change the conversation about immigrants. #BlessingNotBurden

Check out the posts that have gone up so far:

Diversity is Our Greatest Strength: Sarahi

Immigrants come with Skills, Drives, and Passion: Berniz

A Fork in the Road: Civil Religion or Christianity? Nate Pyle

Civil religion offers a seductive religious counterfeit to Christianity.

I believe we are coming to a fork in the road where the Civil Religion of America will distinguish itself from biblical Christianity. In one direction it will be Country and god; in the other Jesus and Church.

With the Constitution as the sacred text, the founding fathers its saints, and common sense individualism its sanctified goal for humanity, our civil religion offers a seductive religious counterfeit to Christianity. When it comes to American politics, one needs an immense amount of discernment to distinguish between religious sounding talk and actual Christian talk.

This is why Jerry Falwell Jr, in December 2015, saying, “If more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them," is so concerning.

Notice, his statement talks of preemptive violence that “ends those Muslims before they walked in.” Let’s be clear, this is not the way of Jesus. In the Kingdom of God, violence does not defeat violence. The cross of Jesus unmasks the false power of violence to bring about peace by defeating evil in a show of weakness. We may be allured by the promises of power; hopeful in the force of military general. But do not be mistaken, this is not Christianity.

If it was just one instance where one person said one wacky thing, then okay. But Falwell’s statement was met with cheers!

Not only that, but we have Donald Trump, who says his favorite book is the Bible, saying we should discriminate against Muslims, keep them out of the country whose First Amendment is the freedom of religion, and give them special I.D.’s. It’d be nice to chalk those comments up to a xenophobic outlier, but it’s hard to make the case that he’s an outlier when he is the GOP's presidential candidate. Thousands upon thousands of people support him, meaning they believe Trump is speaking for them. He is saying what they believe. That should frighten the hell out of us!

But again, we don’t just have the glorification of guns, and we don’t just have a crotchety old man spouting off hatred for a major religion. We also have the active demonization of a people who are fleeing terrorism. Governors across the nation have worked to block refugees from coming to their states out of fear. As Christians called to help the widow and orphan, to welcome the stranger, and to love our neighbor as ourself, blocking refugees in the name of security isn’t a cut and dry answer. We cannot simply abandon these clear teachings of Jesus because we are scared.

Civil religion is not interested in the stranger. It is not interested in love of neighbor. Civil religion is interested only in love of country; which, as a utilitarian faith, must serve the individual. Christianity seeks to love the world, and in doing so, point to the one who so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

I do not want to stand idly by as the lines between civil religion and Christianity are blurred. I believe we are in a moment where Christians have to stand and proclaim with whole-hearted conviction that Jesus is Lord. Not Caesar.

The full article is available here

Responsive Call To Worship: Lives Of Service (based on 2 Corinthians 5:20)

based on Worship Connection
by Nancy C Townley

Reader: God, guide our lives in service to your world.
All: Make us ambassadors of hope and promise.

Reader: God, open our eyes.
All: Help us to see your world as you see it.

Reader: Open our hearts and our spirits to follow your path.
All: Help us to be people who bring good news to those bound by the chains of injustice.

Reader: Come, let us worship God, who sets things right; who makes all things new.
All: Let us praise God with joyful hearts.

Christians Need To Be Honest About Bible's Contradictions - Chuck Queen in Patheos

We must always give first priority and more authority to those texts that teach us about Jesus and what Jesus taught, believed, and did, than other scriptures.

Christian leaders and churches need to admit that we have done a poor job in teaching parishioners how to read biblical texts critically. Perhaps Christians wouldn’t believe and do such silly things if they had been taught to read the Bible critically before trying to appropriate it spiritually.

The only constructive way forward is to be honest with the text and admit that the Bible gives different portrayals and images of God that cannot simply be ignored or rationalized away. When you get right down to it, no Christian, even the most conservative Christian, believes the Bible equally. Some parts of the Bible are focused on, and other parts of the Bible are ignored or dismissed in some way.

However, we must always give preference to the Gospels – to the stories about Jesus and the stories Jesus told. We must always give first priority and more authority to those texts that teach us about Jesus and what Jesus taught, believed, and did, than other scriptures.

Of course we also have to read the Gospel texts critically as well. That means acknowledging that the Gospel writers sometimes embellished and altered the stories that were passed down to them. And undoubtedly the oral stories were altered and changed as they were passed along decades before they were ever written down, collected, and utilized as a source for the composition of our canonical Gospels.

Reading the Bible honestly and critically helps us to realize that the Bible didn’t float down from heaven on the wings of angels. The Bible came to us through a very human and fallible process. It also provides some boundaries and parameters for making spiritual application of these texts to our lives and faith communities.

The full article is available here

Stages of Faith - Dr James Fowler

"Although the growing understanding of God can be traced through the Bible, some remain fixated on certain aspects of God. This is because they never progress beyond certain stages."

- Dr James Fowler, Stages of Faith Development

Real Worship - The Rev. J. Gary Brinn in Constructive Faith

What we do in our faith community only matters if it changes what we do everywhere else. Mouths without hands is empty praise.

God is a powerful force of creativity, compassion, and love in the universe. Our praise or worship is an attempt to align ourselves with that powerful force because it is both our source and our end.

This is all well and good as an abstraction, but what does that look like in our lives? Is it only about interior faith and exterior avoidance of sin? Or is there something more?

For those of us in the Christian tradition, the construct of a God with agency and a passive creation changed radically with the arrival of Jesus, the Hebrew prophet and teacher. We Christians believe that, - in Jesus - the world had a direct experience of the divine.  God was in fact instead a force for healing and justice rather than being other-worldly or a warrior-king. 

If our purpose in praising and worshiping God is to align ourselves with the original force of creativity and compassion - of love and growth, of the ordinary miracles of today - then we should know that this is neither interior and nor static. It is not “give my heart to Jesus.” God does not only need your heart. God needs your hands.

The trajectory of our faith - our growing understanding of God and the event of God’s anointed in the person of Jesus - demands that we no longer be passive lumps waiting for divine intervention. We are the divine intervention. This is how God chose to act in the world, through the beautifully imperfect flesh and blood of humanity. That is how God acted in Jesus. It is how God acts today.

What we do in our faith community only matters if it changes what we do everywhere else. Mouths without hands is empty praise.

The full article is available here

Reflection and Renewal: Be Willing To Be Continually Made New (based on 1 Corinthians 10:13)

based on "Prayer of Confession" by Beth Merrill Neel 

God, we don’t always live out what we claim to believe. We turn away from you, from our neighbors, and from our true selves. We dim your light within us with our pride, our self-righteousness, and our need for control.

Forgive us.

Help us to remember that your love for us is endless, and that you've told us to love others in that same manner.

Help us to have open ears, eyes, and hearts to notice how you call us - again and again - back to love, back to grace, back to your light.

Give us the courage to be willing to be continually made new so that we can fully love you and all of your creation.

Trinitarian Revolution - Richard Rohr

Responsive Call To Worship: God Invites Us To Connection (based on Matthew 6:33)

Reader: Our good and gracious God invites us to come and find connection ...
All: ... may our hearts be open.

Reader: Lord, as we gather now ...
All: ... let us seek you.

Reader: As you knock ...
All: ... may we open the door to you.

Reader: As you make yourself known to us ...
All: ... may we praise you.

Reflection and Renewal: Help Us To Be Tuned In (based on Matthew 6:6)

God, even though we want to have connection with you, the idea of praying can seem weird and uncomfortable a lot of the time.

Sometimes we feel guilty because we don’t think we’re good enough at praying or we don’t it as often as we think we should.  Our understanding of prayer remains limited and we remain stuck.

And sometimes when we pray, we are shallow; treating you like some kind of a vending machine. We can be quick to ask for all kinds of thing, but not nearly as quick to utilize prayer as a time of listening and reflection; as a way to reorient ourselves towards how you’ve asked us to live; loving you and loving others.

And sometimes, we can be so focused on asking for what we want that we miss opportunities to be the answer to other’s prayers.

So God, help us to appreciate the fullness of your love and to remain aware of how you continually move around us, within us, and through us to your world.

Help our eyes to see and our eyes to hear.

Amen

Responsive Benediction: Being The Hands and Feet of God To The World (based on 1 Corinthians 12:27)

Reader: As we go now, to be God's presence in the world ...
All: We will open our minds to understand the needs around us.

Reader: As we go now, to be Christ's servants in the world ...
All: We will open our hands to share with all.

Reader: As we go now, to be the Spirit's hope for the world ...
All: We will open our hearts to welcome those who have no one to care for them.

Benediction: God Continues To Create, Speak, Guide, and Breathe New Life (based on Genesis 2:9)

Since we believe that God speaks to us in all sorts of ways, may we listen carefully for that still, small voice that brings words of hope and love.  

Since we believe that God continues to use things in our everyday lives to guide us, may we be receptive to those nudges.

As we take comfort in all of the sources of God's wisdom and grace, may we also remain dedicated to putting that guidance into practice in our everyday lives as God’s hands and feet.

Responsive Call To Worship: God The Creative Spark (based on Genesis 1:31)

Reader: God is the creative spark of new life.
All: We will seek God in this new day.

Reader: What God creates is good.
All: We will rejoice and be glad.

Reader: God, architect of life and wholeness ...
All: ... open our eyes to your ever-surrounding presence.

Reader: Spirit, creator of awe and beauty ...
All: ... open our souls to your stirring.

Reader: Jesus, through whom everything came into existence ...
All: ... open our hearts to your grace and love.

Richard Rohr - The Divine Dance

Father Richard Rohr on embracing Perichoresis instead of "Mere Monotheism."

Call To Worship: Communion Service (based on Isaiah 40:3)

From far out in the wasteland that we find ourselves in, we cry to you God.  We hunger for Jesus, the bread of life, and we thirst for God's Spirit.

God please hear us! Pay attention to our cries for help! Help us to remember that even though we may feel lost and far from home, there is mercy and grace with you.

Our trust in you is the hope that we're hanging on to and we're taking you at your word God. So we're waiting on you God, seeking.

Benediction: May The Triune God Be With Us (based on John 14:16)

May the grace of Jesus, the love of God,  and the presence of the Spirit be with us all; now and forevermore.

Call To Worship: God Welcomes All (based on Luke 7:36-50)

adapted from Call to Worship: Luke 7: 36-50
by Pastor Seth A. Normington

God, you welcome all of us as honored guests.  You welcome us all - even though we don’t always get things right, even though we don't always show love like you do. You forgive our failures and give us a seat at your table.

For this amazing gift, we give you worship and praise.

Why Worship? The Rev. J. Gary Brinn in Constructive Faith

We worship God because we are toward God and toward God- as-experienced-in others. Moments of communal worship are moments of doubling, of tripling, of giving and receiving; a threefold relationship of self, other, and God.

As many studies have shown, communal worship is in decline. Many of those who were raised in the church no longer regularly attend what the church offers as worship services.

Yet many of those who no longer attend still seek for meaning and still have spiritual lives. It's just that our worship services often tend to fail to both emphasize a communal experience of God and to connect attendees to something larger than their individualism. 

This perhaps isn't surprising - given that we have worked on the how of worship often without ever addressing the why. The failure is ours as the church.

It's inarguably true that experiencing moments of transcendence and being a part of efforts that make a difference in the world can happen in places other in than in church services; perhaps even in better and more authentic forms.

So then why do we gather together to worship?

We do not praise God to bargain with God, so that isn't the reason.

We do not praise God for God's own sake, so that also isn't the reason. 

Praising God should driven by our humanness and our hardwiring for connection and community because we are oriented for that interrelation with God in our being.  Praise is just one mood of this relatedness.

Our thriving as humans depends on our interconnectedness. We are not simply animals designed to rut and reproduce, because we have this x in the equation; our souls. We see evidence of this mysterious x in art, in sacrificial love, and in that part of us that soars toward God and toward the other (the other beyond one's own family/tribe, for even thieves take care of their own).

And so we act out our praise of God - and of the way in which we are hardwired toward connection God - in community, in acts of communal worship which are moments of doubling, of tripling, of giving and receiving; a threefold relationship of self, other, and God. This is why no worship that is about meeting my individual needs will ever be real worship.  

Worship can involve transcendence, can speak to changing the world, can give you the tools to get through next week, and can give you comfort when you need comfort and challenge you when you are stuck, but it does so properly only when it aligns with being toward God and toward God-as-experienced-in the other.

The full article is available here

Benediction: The Values of God's Way Of Life (based on Matthew 5:17-19)

May we embrace the values of God’s way of life; values of love, justice, and truth.  May we live out these values with the guidance of our faithful, loving, and empowering God.

Worship Words: Too Important to Neglect - Joan Huyser-Honig in Calvin Institute of Christian Worship

Our words form us whether or not we pay attention to how they are doing so.  The church is starving for a richer picture of the God we worship. 

God speaks through Balaam's donkey and speaks through flawed humans.  So is using worship cliches or cliche practices that much of a problem, as long as we're sincere?

The answer = when your congregation's worship language includes only a couple names for or aspects of God, then worshipers receive an imbalanced understanding of God.

Worship language deserves far more attention than it gets in the average congregation.

Ron writes, "Christians frequently talk about salvation as 'inviting Jesus into my heart," as if the day you got saved, you made a bargain with God.  That's such an incomplete understanding of salvation and especially dangerous in our consumer culture."

Debra writes, "Our words form us whether or not we pay attention to how they are doing so.  Just as children quickly learn to speak with the vocabulary, tones, and inflections of their parents, so we learn to 'speak' our spiritual lives with the words and tones, with the emotional and theological range, of what we experience at worship.

"The [church] is starving for a richer picture of the [God] we worship," Debra writes.

To discuss how songs picture God, Worship Words quotes Lester Ruth's research on Trinitarian language in contemporary worship music. Ruth, who teaches worship and liturgy at Asbury Theological Seminary, used Christian Copyright Licensing Information (CCLI) top 25 song data from 1989-2004. (Many songs stayed so popular that only 72 songs made the list during that time).

None of the songs named the Trinity or God's triune nature. Just 3 songs mentioned all three persons of the Trinity.  Most named only Jesus.

This research demonstrates the difference between how God is spoken of in contemporary worship song and how the Bible speaks of God.

The full article is available here.

Responsive Benediction: God Breathes Life (based on Genesis 2:7)

Reader: We believe God still creates ...
All:  ... so may we continue to be made new.

Reader:  We believe God still speaks,
All:  ... so may we listen carefully.

Reader: We believe God still guides ...
All:  ... so may we walk in God’s way.

Reader: We believe God still breathes life into being ...
All: ... so may we be light and life to God’s world.

Downward Mobility & The Way of Jesus - Henri J Nouwen

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

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

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

God, we gather together in hope and faith, waiting and expecting. 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.

Saint Goes Stage Diving - Ship of Fools

A processing, unsecured statue crashes to the floor in a Toronto church – to the congregation's shrieks of dismay.

More entertaining, though, is what happens next.

A freshly-decapitated St George is lifted up and placed in full view of the congregation... as a warning? Meanwhile the hapless bearers slink off to the vestry.

Religion, Science and Spirit: A Sacred Story for Our Time - David Korten

The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology to guide us to mature relationships with one another and a living Earth. 

Humanity’s current behavior threatens Earth’s capacity to support life and relegates more than a billion people to lives of destitution.

This self-destructive behavior and our seeming inability to change have deep roots in the stories by which we understand the nature and meaning of our existence.

The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation—that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge; a story to guide us to mature relationships with one another and a living Earth.

Three distinct cosmologies have each had their influence in shaping the Western worldview. Two are familiar; (1) the cosmos is created and ruled by a Distant Patriarch and (2) the cosmos Is A Grand Machine.

The third - and most relevant to the task at hand - The cosmos is a manifestation of Integral Spirit - has ancient roots, and may in one form or another be the most widely held.

Our creation stories have powerful implications for our understanding of our place in the cosmos and thereby shape our most foundational values, our politics, and the distribution of power in society.  Though sharply at odds regarding the presence or absence of a spiritual intelligence, both the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies affirm the self-destructive individualism and separation that lead us to behave in ways that threaten Earth’s biosphere and our future as a species.

The Integral Spirit cosmology appears to offer many of the elements of the story we seek. Yet even with its ancient roots and its affirmation and enrichment by recent breakthroughs in science, it too remains a partially developed story and we are limited to speculating on many of its elements.

The full article is available here

Picking On The Poor: Facts Behind Cutting Food Stamps - Rev. Jim Wallis

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos and Jesus all took issue with those in authority who refused to provide for the poor.

One pastor I spoke to recently, a good man and friend, told me he was worried about government dependence, like the food stamp program. When I told him that the vast majority of food stamps go to working families with young children, and that they are usually only on the program temporarily during hard economic times; he said, “You should get that out.” 

He didn’t know the facts and the faces of SNAP. So many of us in the faith community have worked to tell the facts and show the faces — to share our stories, to “get that out.”

Have you seen the Fox News “face” of a SNAP recipient — a young blond California surfer who brags about cheating on food stamps? Why is Fox News lying? Why don’t they tell the real facts and show the real faces of kids who are still hungry even though their parents work?

How can anyone who has read the prophets or the words of Jesus come up with the opinion that governments are not responsible to champion the cause and the care of the poor? Not only to ensure none go hungry but that opportunity be given to everyone to fully engage as responsible citizens in our society.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos all took issue with those in authority who refused to provide for the poor. And Jesus insisted that regardless of who we are - individual citizens, persons of influence, government leaders, priests, common people, whoever - that to follow him would require the selling of what we have to ensure the poor are taken care of.

Psalm 72 gives us a portrait of what truly good government looks like: the bringing of justice to those who are poor, the rescue of children in need, the deliverance of those who cry out because of oppression, the care and compassion of the vulnerable, the redemption of those subject to violence, where abundance is generously distributed among all and peace and not war prevails.

Some will respond by saying that the priorities of Psalm 72 refers to a kingdom still to come. I would argue that they are also the priorities God calls us to advance here and now, not only in our theology, churches and private lives, but in what we require of our governments and all those in authority, beginning of course with ourselves.

The full article is available here

Why Environmentalism Is an Important Spiritual Discipline - Stephen Mattson in Sojourner's

The splendor and wonder of creation — Natural Revelation — is observable proof of God and God’s sovereignty. But what happens when it’s not visible?

This concept is often taught from a privileged and Westernized perspective, where scenes of picturesque mountain ranges, pristine lakes and rivers, beautiful wild animals, and lovely plants are used to portray the sheer majesty of God.

For many of us, this is an easy reality to absorb because we love nature and have access to the outdoors, scenic parks, and unpolluted land.  The sad reality is that Natural Revelation — as we interpret it to be — doesn’t really exist for millions of people living in horrid conditions.

If you really believe that the earth reflects God’s glory, when you don’t take care of it and let it become poisoned — you’re essentially keeping people from experiencing the goodness of God.

Pollution, destruction, and the exploitation of our world isn’t a victimless crime — it’s intentionally hiding God from others. The act of making our earth less desirable is blinding others to the goodness of God.

The full article is available here

My Faith Demands That I Make A Difference - President Jimmy Carter

A Healthy View Of The Bible - Unfundamentalist Christians

Evolution of the Church Service - Spencer Burke

What does the idea of a cause community look like in reality? Simply, it answers the question, “How can we love our neighbor?” 

Church function, even its survival, needs more than just a change in metaphors. We are beginning to ask some very fundamental questions.

Do we need to own a building that is used 10% of the week for a 60 to 90-minute teaching service?

Does it make sense in this environmental, carbon-footprint world to drive and listen to a non-interactional presentation, especially when people can capture that teaching while they’re out exercising or driving to work?

It’s clear that people still want commonality and community. Those two aspects of church are staying strong, but what happens in the middle is what holds it all together.  It seems we may be witnessing another fundamental shift in church culture; from a teaching community to a cause community.

In a cause community, the weekly focus shifts from the teaching-based Sunday morning to a multiple-day throughout the week involvement with the community around a cause. Just as Jesus says “come follow me,” rather than “stay and hear me out."

What does the idea of a cause community look like in reality? Simply, it answers the question, “How can we love our neighbor?”

One beautiful thing the church has always had is people who are committed to finding ways to love each other and others around them. In this way, we are resource-rich. If church shifted its purpose to utilizing these resources, a church might look like a mobile barbershop or a community garden, a tutoring program or serving in a senior Alzheimer’s center.

The full article is available here

Benediction: Listen With Ears and Spirits (based on Proverbs 3:6)

Lord, help us to listen - not only with our ears - but also with spirits that are both receptive to your nudges in our everyday lives and to putting their guidance into action.

Faith Leaders Voice Opposition To Trump's Rhetoric - Jim Wallis in Sojourner's

"We don't call it 'politically correct' to speak out against racist bigotry.  We call it being faithful to the gospel." 

60 religious leaders, myself included, made a statement of faithful obedience three weeks ago.

We named it Called to Resist Bigotry, and aimed it at the messages sold by Trump — messages that deliberately promote and fuel bias, fear, and even hate against Mexicans, immigrants in general, Muslims, Syrians in particular, women, African Americans (including our first black president), a disabled reporter, and all political opponents, whom Trump consistently attacks in the most demeaning, degrading, and disgusting language.

Donald Trump offends our values.

One of the most recognized religious leaders for “values voters” is Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religions Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore is a conservative white evangelical, who normally votes Republican.

But last week, Moore wrote a column for The New York Times called “A White Church No More.” In it, he wrote,

"The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech did not envision that more than 50 years later ‘Go back to Africa’ would be screamed at black protesters or that a major presidential candidate would tweet racially charged comments.

Some American Christians may be tempted to ignore these issues, hoping they are just a wave of ‘political incorrectness’ that will ebb in due time. That sort of moral silence shortchanges both our gospel and our future.”

Faith-based organizations don’t endorse candidates. So you won’t be surprised that I am not going to endorse Donald Trump — neither will I endorse his Democratic opponents, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. But we faith leaders will comment on the morality of this presidential campaign, the issues raised or not raised, and the morality of candidates based on our moral values.

Our politics are not God’s politics. And as Moore concluded in his column, “The man on the throne in heaven is a dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking ‘foreigner’ who is probably not all that impressed by chants of ‘Make America great again.’”

Call To Worship: Seeking God's Presence (based on Psalm 103)

Some of us are thirsty and parched, like an unwatered garden, so we have come seeking God’s presence, which is like a fresh-water spring.

Some of us are exhausted from worry and struggling, so we have come seeking God’s presence, where we are offered rest.

Some of us are feeling lost and confused, so we have come seeking God’s presence, where we are offered welcome and guidance.

Some of us are weighed down with guilt and pain, so we have come seeking God’s presence, which helps us to remain standing.

As we all remember God's goodness and love towards us, we give thanks.

A "Go" Community - K. Killian Noe at inward/outward

CRC Climate Witness Project: An Update - Kyle Meyaard-Schaap in The Network

How is the Christian Reformed Church of North America following up on the Paris Agreement?

Phase Two of the Climate Witness Project started on March 1, 2016, and will be completed by June 30, 2017. Many of the regional organizers from Phase One are continuing, and we may expand into new regions.

The CWP will work with at least 70 churches in order to continue educating congregations about climate change, will ask several Climate Witness Partners to write op-eds, and will arrange for visits with Members of Parliament and Congress.

In addition, congregations will be enabled to take steps to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions by making their buildings more energy efficient and reducing their use of energy produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

Some congregations are beginning their work in energy stewardship by replacing incandescent light bulbs and CFL bulbs with LEDs, installing light sensors in bathrooms, and installing programmable thermostats. The Energy Star Program is helping the Climate Witness Project with this effort.

How can members of my congregation to participate in some way in the CRCNA effort?

Please contact Rev. Richard Killmer, coordinator of the CWP, if members of your congregation want to participate in the Climate Witness Project or if you would like to learn more about it.

He can be reached at 207-450- 7242 or at rkillmer@crcnapartners.org.

The full article is available here

Spiritual Literacy: Embracing The World