January 14th, 2007For the Second Sunday after Epiphany we celebrated in the musical portion of worship with mostly music from the new ELW. The Trumpets Sound, the Angels Sing is a great hymn to anticipate a service. The first service Kelly performed and for second service Janice and Craig helped lead on vocals.
Light Shone in Darkness was another special musical moment in both services as we sang it as an antiphon.
According to the introduction to the service today begins a week of prayer for Christian unity.
Pastor Mark gave a sermon illuminating today's readings and the gospel with one another and from a personal perspective. He dramatized the feeling of desolation described in Isaiah with the 1815 shipwreck of the brig Commerce and Captain James Riley. The ship was wrecked off the coast of Africa, putting the captain and his crew in great peril at the hands of Bedouin camel traders, who enslaved them after they had endured great physical hardship.
For the reading in Corinthians concerning spiritual gifts he talked about the prejudice he had learned in his teenage years which had their base in fear. Pastor Mark challenged us all to see each person we encountered first as a child of God and then perceived differences could be looked at as gifts rather than divisions.
Pastor Mark then tied the Gospel reading about the miracle of the wine at a wedding in Cana by describing the condition of the wine giving out as a state of desolation. By looking at attributes and circumstances of everyone we meet as gifts rather than divisions we open ourselves up to powerful transformations like the changing of water (ordinary experiences and relationships) into wine (enriched, kingdom-of-God experiences and relationships) .
Teresa led the Adult Ed hour on the first chapter of Faithful and Courageous which is titled Trusting God’s Faithful Promises.
We broke into small groups and Teresa, Greg, my wife and I discussed the connector question and the questions chosen from the chapter. Everyone had read the chapter and we talked about thoughts, concerns and fears we personally had and fears our congregation may have. In our small group we found all of us would be reluctant to admit our fears or take a spiritual crisis to congregational members on the whole. We had actually seen the contrary in several examples where people would not attend church precisely when they were in spiritual crisis. Certainly there are notable exceptions to this generalization we have also seen.
We speculated that as powerful as our experiences can be when we are singing God’s song, sharing God’s love and serving God’s people that this can be a celebration that push away some individual’s in moments of crisis.
It is easy to wish for more from your congregation, but something at the heart of Creator’s congregation frequently astonishes me. An example is the effort that Teresa made to give this Adult Ed hour a new meaningfulness and a time to strengthen our spiritual lives together. It enriched my family’s spiritual life in ways she probably doesn’t know. My wife and I spent Saturday talking about the reading and questions we both were initially reluctant to answer. Our talk increased the depth and meaning for me of the Adult Ed hour. When Teresa and Greg shared their answers to some of the questions on Sunday I learned a lot about where their faith was rooted.
To wrap this up, I will go back to Pastor Mark’s sermon that mentioned relationships and connections. He talked about how so many of us will say that relationships and connections are the most important things in our lives. Then we do not act as we talk. We invest our time in earning money and other concerns over taking time for the relationships in our lives.
I often see people who want to make connections in the congregation. It is the balance I need to strike in my life and within the relationships I have to be as connected as I would want with other members on the spiritual journey we are making together and individually. I pray God gives the strength and direction to provide the balance needed to give to others at Creator and to accept their gifts in ways that nourish us all.
Light Shone in Darkness was another special musical moment in both services as we sang it as an antiphon.
According to the introduction to the service today begins a week of prayer for Christian unity.
Pastor Mark gave a sermon illuminating today's readings and the gospel with one another and from a personal perspective. He dramatized the feeling of desolation described in Isaiah with the 1815 shipwreck of the brig Commerce and Captain James Riley. The ship was wrecked off the coast of Africa, putting the captain and his crew in great peril at the hands of Bedouin camel traders, who enslaved them after they had endured great physical hardship.
For the reading in Corinthians concerning spiritual gifts he talked about the prejudice he had learned in his teenage years which had their base in fear. Pastor Mark challenged us all to see each person we encountered first as a child of God and then perceived differences could be looked at as gifts rather than divisions.
Pastor Mark then tied the Gospel reading about the miracle of the wine at a wedding in Cana by describing the condition of the wine giving out as a state of desolation. By looking at attributes and circumstances of everyone we meet as gifts rather than divisions we open ourselves up to powerful transformations like the changing of water (ordinary experiences and relationships) into wine (enriched, kingdom-of-God experiences and relationships) .
Teresa led the Adult Ed hour on the first chapter of Faithful and Courageous which is titled Trusting God’s Faithful Promises.
We broke into small groups and Teresa, Greg, my wife and I discussed the connector question and the questions chosen from the chapter. Everyone had read the chapter and we talked about thoughts, concerns and fears we personally had and fears our congregation may have. In our small group we found all of us would be reluctant to admit our fears or take a spiritual crisis to congregational members on the whole. We had actually seen the contrary in several examples where people would not attend church precisely when they were in spiritual crisis. Certainly there are notable exceptions to this generalization we have also seen.
We speculated that as powerful as our experiences can be when we are singing God’s song, sharing God’s love and serving God’s people that this can be a celebration that push away some individual’s in moments of crisis.
It is easy to wish for more from your congregation, but something at the heart of Creator’s congregation frequently astonishes me. An example is the effort that Teresa made to give this Adult Ed hour a new meaningfulness and a time to strengthen our spiritual lives together. It enriched my family’s spiritual life in ways she probably doesn’t know. My wife and I spent Saturday talking about the reading and questions we both were initially reluctant to answer. Our talk increased the depth and meaning for me of the Adult Ed hour. When Teresa and Greg shared their answers to some of the questions on Sunday I learned a lot about where their faith was rooted.
To wrap this up, I will go back to Pastor Mark’s sermon that mentioned relationships and connections. He talked about how so many of us will say that relationships and connections are the most important things in our lives. Then we do not act as we talk. We invest our time in earning money and other concerns over taking time for the relationships in our lives.
I often see people who want to make connections in the congregation. It is the balance I need to strike in my life and within the relationships I have to be as connected as I would want with other members on the spiritual journey we are making together and individually. I pray God gives the strength and direction to provide the balance needed to give to others at Creator and to accept their gifts in ways that nourish us all.
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8:46 PM
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