Church News (Page 15)

This is the end of Lent and the beginning of our celebration of resurrection! This is a time of looking forward with renewed hope after a period of darkness. This is a time that surely feels surprising, even to the point that we may even doubt what we see and what we feel. Could it be?? If these words—written to describe the feelings of those early followers more than 2000 years ago—feel familiar to you today, it is no wonder.…

This is the sixth week of the season of Lent and Palm/Passion Sunday. We conclude our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The Scripture passage this Sunday is John 18:1-11. As we near our Easter celebration, we might be tempted to want over to skip over the bad stuff and jump straight to the celebration and the eggs and the fun! And we would be wrong to do this.…

This week we continue our series on Holy Week as we look at Chapter 5 of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering Christ’s Passion: Holy Week for Beginners, “Risking the Loss of Friends.” The Scripture passage this week is from Luke 22:14-27. As we continue through Holy Week and near Easter, we arrive at a profoundly moving gathering of Jesus with his disciples. Gathering for the Passover celebration, Jesus does something extraordinary. Told differently in the Gospels (read Matthew 26, Mark 14,…

This week we continue our series on Holy Week as we look at Chapter 4 of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering Christ’s Passion: Holy Week for Beginners, “Risking Rejection.” The Scripture passage this week is from John 12:1-8 (see below), which is the story of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet. This story can be found in different forms in Mark 14:3-9, Matthew 26:6-13, and Luke 7:36-50. We may recall this story of a woman in its various forms. Perhaps we think…

This week we continue our series on Holy Week as we look at Chapter 3 of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering Christ’s Passion: Holy Week for Beginners, “Risking Challenge.” The Scripture passage this week is from Mark 12:28-34 (see below), and Levine’s book also references Matthew 22:15-22 and Mark 12:41-44. As we center on this third week of Lent, we land on Tuesday of Holy Week with Jesus remaining in Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark (from which we read this week)…

This week we continue our series on Holy Week as we look at Chapter 2 of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering Christ’s Passion: Holy Week for Beginners, “Risking Righteous Anger”. The Scripture passage this week is from Mark 11:15-19, the story of the cleansing of the Temple. This story is having a bit of a revival right now among Christians of my generation (and others!). Those of us who grew up in or around Christian traditions where the main goal of…

This is the first week of the season of Lent, and the first week of our new Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. Each Sunday we will journey through Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem culminating in the cross and then resurrection Sunday! This week begins with the first day of Holy Week, which brings the familiar scripture of Palm Sunday. If you are one who loves the traditions of…

This is the final week of our sermon series “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,” in which we have explored ways to read the Bible more deeply, with a mind to history, context, genre, and literary analysis. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. This week, we shift from how to read into how to live as we dive into the theme of practical theology. In week one, on “Epiphany & Creation,” Pastor Bob…

In this sixth and penultimate week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we continue our exploration of our sacred texts. The final book in the New Testament was not necessarily the final book written, but was placed there because of its focus. Revelation (please note that it’s singular, not plural) is a letter written describing a vision or dream that is author experienced. Attributed to an author named John, scholars are not unified in naming which…

In the fifth week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we continue our exploration of the sacred texts with the core writings that help Christians claim their unique identity of faith: the Gospels and Acts. These five books share the “good news” of Jesus Christ with the world, telling age-old stories of miracles and teachings, criticisms, prophesies, tragedies and death. These stories tell us in compelling and imaginative ways who Jesus is, why Jesus matters, and…

In the fourth week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we are jumping into the New Testament with the letters and epistles from Paul and other authors. The reason we are starting the New Testament here instead of with the Gospels is that many of these letters actually pre-date the Gospels in terms of their authorship. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. I’m not very good at writing letters. If I’m…