Here are snippets from the last two worship services now posted on our Youtube channel. Look for this past Sunday’s great service to be up later this week.
Tag Archives: love
Have you found your mission?
Jules & Greg are two of our key Table community regulars, whose leadership and care and welcome of others has made a difference. This past summer, they went with a group from the Church of the Incarnation to Honduras as part of a training/preparation program to lead such trips in the future. Jules shared her experiences back in August, but she and Greg will brief our whole church on Sunday at noon. I hope you can plan on being there.
Mission has been an unofficial theme for the Table in this New Year, as we have attempted to move beyond our four walls and into our community. Tonight, a group of us will go and participate with the homeless census and count, starting at City Hall. During Christmas, the Table helped Reconciliation Ministry organize and distribute gifts to families in need. Most of our messages in this New Year have been focused on our call to serve others.
But it’s important to realize that mission is not just something that you go and do in a foreign country, one time a month for a special event, or whatever. It’s what you do each day.
Theologian David Bosch, in his book Transforming Mission, says it this way:
… consequently, the church is called to live the resurrection life in the here and now and to be a sign of contradiction against the forces of death and destruction.
Your job setting is a place to do mission. Your apartment complex. Your home. Your neighborhood. Your gym. Your local pub. Your supermarket. Wherever your day takes you, you will have opportunity to participate in Jesus’ ministry of incarnation in someone else – being God’s love for a stranger, friend, or enemy. Sometimes, that’s handing a thirsty person a drink of water or buying a burger for a hungry neighbor. Sometimes, it’s your presence in a time of need. It might even be words of affirmation to someone who feels beat down by life. It definitely includes using your voice to change systems that are broken in our own community.
Have you discovered your place of mission? Are you opening up to sharing God’s love with those you meet? May this New Year be a time to discover the answers to those questions and hear God’s call afresh.
stretching
I’m excited about our September sermon series called STRETCHING.
Regardless of political affiliation, spiritual background, occupation, or age, most people understand that our world is changing, and each year, we face new kinds of questions that challenge not just our intellects but also our faith. Some of these questions may be easier than others to answer, but most challenge us to our core. What about my friend who is fundamentally a good person but has only been hurt by the Christian faith? Why does my country keep waging wars on other nations? Why are so many black young men incarcerated? Why are we stuck in an endless loop of political bickering when larger problems loom for our world?
We may have heard answers to these questions. We may know where we stand… but we may not. We also may not understand that the Bible, though wielded as an instrument of judgment by a lot of folks, may offer completely different answers than we think. This is a series to discover some of those answers. And though we may disagree, by stretching deeply around these issues, we may be more prepared to love others as God loves us.
Here’s a preview:
September 11 – Deep Wounds
Finding healing and hope in times of war
September 18 – Open & Affirming
Understanding God’s gift of sexuality
September 25 – Finding Reconciliation
Living for reconciliation in a diverse world
October 2 – A Universal God
Is God bigger than one people or one tradition?
October 9 – Real Conversations
Learning how to agree to disagree
Stay tuned for more updates as this great new conversation unfolds, beginning September 11.
Into Chaos
It’s been a long summer for me, but my wife and kids are home after 90 days in beautiful South Korea. I had a busy week before they were back, but it was like a calm before the storm. I cleaned our apartment. I waited. I held my breath.
And then, they were back, and it was chaos again. Our apartment stayed clean for all of an hour before the kids were tearing into their toys that they missed and rediscovering the best hiding places. We even managed a brief biking excursion outside in the Texas heat. Everyone was glad to be home, so glad, that no one really wanted to sleep.
Just as community can be an aid to our sense of loneliness and disconnection in the world, it can also be chaotic. Relationships are not tame things. Relationships have that edge of unpredictability. Going from a sense of being alone to being knee deep in new energy and excitement is a quick baptism to make. But maybe it’s worth it – maybe the chaos is just part of the joy of being back in the presence of those you love.
I am reminded of an Albert Schweitzer quote here:
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
Has anyone rekindled your inner spirit this week? Your family? Your friends? Thanks be to You, God, for the gift of those we love and for the fire they rekindle in each of us.
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