God Sightings: Elijah and the Widow

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

God Sightings: Solomon’s Prayer

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

Promises Made: Where Does God Live?

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

Promises Made: Hannah and Samuel

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

Mental Health Sunday: a Golden Calf in the Wilderness

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

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