by Kent M French, December 05, 2024
Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year, and this Advent, our aptly-named worship curriculum invites us to explore “Words for the Beginning: Advent Reminders for New Seasons”. From December 1st through January 5th, we’ll dive into the themes of blessing, companionship, risky hope, abiding love, holy laughter, crooked roads and a whole lot more! On Sunday we’ll visit a story not normally told in Advent, of Ruth and Naomi (Ruth, chapter 1). It’s a story about creating a chosen family vs. what cultural traditions might typically expect. It’s also a story about valuing friendship, companionship and leaning on others… Read More
by Amy Norton-Benfield, November 26, 2024
Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year, and this Advent, our aptly-named worship curriculum invites us to explore “Words for the Beginning: Advent Reminders for New Seasons”. From December 1st through January 5th, we’ll dive into the themes of blessing, companionship, risky hope, abiding love, holy laughter, crooked roads, and a whole lot more! This Sunday, we welcome United Parish member Kate Baker-Carr to the pulpit as our guest preacher. Kate writes: From start to finish, from Genesis to Revelation, Holy Scripture bears witness to the angels who play a critical role in the history and heritage of our… Read More
by Amy Norton-Benfield, November 21, 2024
This autumn, we drop into various stories of the Bible sequentially, starting at the beginning — following along with our young people in Church School. This is our final Sunday before Advent looking for “God sightings”- learning about and noticing where God lives, how God shows up for us, and how we can listen for God in our lives. I once heard about a clergy colleague who had a section in every employment contract that they were expected to meet a certain number of failures each year. This expectation was to hold them accountable to experimenting, trying new things, following… Read More
by Kent M French, November 14, 2024
This autumn, we drop into various stories of the Bible sequentially, starting at the beginning — following along with our young people in Church School. We’ll spend the next few weeks looking for “God sightings”- learning about and noticing where God lives, how God shows up for us, and how we can listen for God in our lives. Autumn All-Parish Meeting Sunday Some of us may still be reeling from the news. Some of us may have gone numb. Some of us may be obsessively checking the news. Some of us are avoiding it. Some of us may wonder what… Read More
by Kent M French, November 07, 2024
I just came from a prayer meeting of interfaith clergy: rabbis, imams, pastors, black, white, Asian, queer, hetero. Beautiful, thoughtful, engaged people of faith. This group offers one of the things I love best about our country: diversity of experience and background. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one! One of the rabbis grew up in Chile under the dictatorship of General Pinochet, who came to power by killing his predecessor in the presidential palace. Her mother died in an anti-Semitic bombing in Buenos Aires. An imam recalled when he was five years old and his family fled Somalia, walking… Read More
by Anna Jeide-Detweiler, October 31, 2024
REMINDER: Daylight Savings ends this Sunday, set clocks back one hour. This autumn, we drop into various stories of the Bible sequentially, starting at the beginning — following along with our young people in Church School. We’ll spend the next few weeks looking for “God sightings”- learning about and noticing where God lives, how God shows up for us, and how we can listen for God in our lives. Meet Elijah the prophet. Elijah lived after King Solomon — who we met last week. He is known for performing miracles. This Sunday, we hear the story of Elijah and the widow… Read More
by Amy Norton-Benfield, October 23, 2024
This autumn, we drop into various stories of the Bible sequentially, starting at the beginning — following along with our young people in Church School. We’ll spend the next few weeks looking for “God sightings”- learning about and noticing where God lives, how God shows up for us, and how we can listen for God in our lives. Last Sunday, we sat with David as God informed him that he wasn’t the one who would build the temple. This Sunday, we meet King Solomon, David’s son, as he prepares to take on this sacred task. Our scripture reading contains excerpts… Read More
by Kent M French, October 17, 2024
This autumn, we drop into various stories of the Bible sequentially, starting at the beginning — following along with our young people in Church School. Through October 20th, we look at the promises God makes with humanity and how those promises get broken. We look at our relationship with God and how we honor and keep it. David is a larger-than-life, charismatic, heroic figure in the story of the Israelites. He starts out as a humble shepherd boy, the baby of his family, who finds a place as a skillful lyre-player in King Saul’s court. He famously defeats the gigantic… Read More
by Amy Norton-Benfield, October 09, 2024
Our Bible story this week begins while the Israelites are still living the frontier life as described in the Book of Judges. As our worship curriculum explains, “There is no unified political framework, and the people are constantly threatened by neighboring people, especially the Philistines. In this uneasy life situation, having children who will carry on the family name is the way in which women’s worth was measured. The key to understanding Hannah’s situation is that—even though she is older and Elkanah loves her—without children, society sees her as having no value… Hannah prays to God for a son and… Read More
by Amy Norton-Benfield, October 03, 2024
Beloveds, Last year, the Mental Health team decided that we would coordinate three services each year that are devoted in some way to the mental health ministry of this community. In the cold, dark months of winter we’d have a service focused on providing comfort and solace, most recently we’ve attempted that through our Longest Night service. In the spring as the world awakens, and the NAMI walk approaches, we would hold a service dedicated to raising awareness about mental health challenges and energizing our advocacy. Our fall service, we decided, would be focused on grounding and re-centering, because it’s… Read More
