by Amy Norton, February 29, 2024
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.” On Sunday, we’ll be continuing our Lenten journey with Simon as Jesus bestows a new name upon him and cements him forevermore in our narrative as Peter. This nickname, Petros (or Kephas, in Aramaic), might best be appreciated by English speakers as “Rocky” (or maybe “the Rock,” if you’re a Fast & Furious fan). And what an exultant moment for Rocky this is. Blurting… Read More
by Amy Norton, February 20, 2024
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.” On Sunday, we’ll be continuing our Lenten journey with Peter (still named Simon at this point in the narrative), back out onto his boat in the middle of a stormy sea of Galilee. In those days, before aquariums and marine biology and underwater cameras, the ocean’s depths were a foreboding mystery that still very much inhabited the cultural zeitgeist as the realm of scary… Read More
by Kent French, February 15, 2024
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.” Jesus’ first disciples were everyday people: minding their own business, mending their nets, supporting their families, worrying about expenses, paying their taxes, fretting about the future. First and foremost among them was Peter. He’s a compelling guy, often impulsive, leaping before he looks, getting it wrong at least as much as he gets it right, making promises he can’t keep. Much… Read More
by Kent French, February 08, 2024
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, following the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.” This is the last Sunday before we launch once again into the season of Lent, those 40 days when we commemorate Jesus’ days in the wilderness and seek to deepen in our own faith and spiritual practices. This Sunday, we’ll offer a prelude to Lent, as we lean into the Wandering Heart series described above (check out the link). Often, before the… Read More
by Amy Norton, February 01, 2024
January 21-February 4, our worship continues following our Church School curriculum from the autumn, Seeking Peace Together, as we learn in worship alongside the youngest members of our community. We had just chosen the hymn In the Bleak Midwinter for our Advent midweek worship when we turned to planning some of our post-Christmas Sundays, and noted humorously the seeming incongruence of “Celebrating the Harvest” during the depths of the “Bleak Midwinter.” The text this week forms the basis of the holiday of Sukkot, or the Festival of Booths, that our Jewish siblings still celebrate to this day. In part a… Read More
by Kent French, January 25, 2024
January 21-February 4, our worship continues following our Church School curriculum from the autumn, Seeking Peace Together, as we learn in worship alongside the youngest members of our community. Peacemakers join God in caring for the Earth. On Sunday, we will revisit the second Creation story in Genesis (chapter 2, verses 4-23) and imagine what it would have felt like to wake up in the original Garden of Eden: What would we notice? What would surprise us? Where would our sense of wonder go? How does this original, primal wonder inform our relationship with this Earthly garden today? How much… Read More
by Kent French, January 18, 2024
January 21-February 4, our worship continues following our Church School curriculum from the autumn, Seeking Peace Together, as we learn in worship alongside the youngest members of our community. This Sunday, we pick up where our Church School curriculum left off in November, pre-Advent and Christmastide. And we start back in with a radical concept of wartime hospitality and a doozy of a biblical story to ground us (2 Kings 6:8-23). The story is so strange to our modern sensibility, that it comes across like creatively re-imagined history, with a whole lot magical realism thrown in. And yet, as we… Read More
by Amy Norton-Benfield, January 11, 2024
Dear Ones, I hope you will join us at 9:45am downstairs in Willett Hall on Sunday for our annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Intergenerational Morning of Service! There are service activities for every age and ability (drawing, scrubbing, tying, painting, connecting, and more!), and every little bit helps! Afterwards, in worship (also in Willett Hall), we’ll be delving into this year’s theme from The King Center: “It Starts With Me”. We’ll hear two stories of unlikely individuals called to join a movement they knew nothing about; and thanks to their leaps of curiosity, ended up making a whole… Read More
by Kent French, January 04, 2024
For this Advent and Christmastide, we are deepening into the question of How Does a Weary World Rejoice? You can follow along with daily devotionals on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Worship this Sunday, January 7, is in Willett Hall, while our Sanctuary is being painted. Please check our website and emails about the status of worship in light of the coming snow storm. We began this series by acknowledging our weariness and we conclude with trusting our belovedness; ultimately, our joy is rooted in the fact that we belong to God. In the story of Jesus’ baptism (Luke 3:15-22),… Read More
by Kent French, December 28, 2023
For this Advent and Christmastide, we are deepening into the question of How Does a Weary World Rejoice? You can follow along with daily devotionals on our Facebook and Instagram pages. After the shepherds and angels depart, after being counted for the census, after the wise ones drop off their gifts, then what? Mary and Joseph needed to make their way back home. But first, they had an important ritual — the Jewish rite of circumcision for an eight-day-old male. So they headed to the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:21-38). There they encounter Simeon, who had long awaited to meet… Read More
