Each week in DiscipleChurch Dr. Bill Longsworth leads the celebration of communion with two very significant items: home baked bread from his mother’s recipe (scaled down) and a ceremonial Olivewood chalice from the Holy Land. Here’s a little more about this sacred home communion ritual — maybe to inspire your own!
People who claim God’s point of view seem to be very anxious to uproot the others. And the good news is that is not our job.
Right now, we find ourselves living with the world on fire and the hurricanes washing towns away. All around us, as the psalmist wrote, the “earth gives way, and the mountains fall into the sea.”
How people think about God is part of everyone’s worldview. Even with various views of God, or no god, each is a worldview and affects how we relate to each other in all our problems.
The life of faith makes peace with imperfection because faith recognizes that among our common traits as humans whom God loves, is imperfection.
Even if we weren’t in the fifth month of pandemic, the art of being on our feet would be a necessary practice for embracing life. Walking for the heart and the head is a singular, simple gift. Here’s how the sensations of stopping and standing allows the mind to shift to a lower gear.
In a culture of might and personal rights, the golden rule can easily be dismissed as weakness. Jesus says, “Enter the narrow gate, because narrow is the road that leads to life . . . ” The road is narrow not because the gospel is hard to understand; It’s narrow because love can be hard.
I am a collector of great quotes and phrases. I wish I could hire someone to go through all my notebooks, electronic files, and random pieces of paper to organize these jewels so I could more easily retrieve them instead of always having to search for them.
The first beatitude, “blessed are the poor” in Luke’s gospel, reads “blessed are the poor in spirit” in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is not telling people to be poor, or poor in spirit so they can gain the kingdom of heaven. He’s making an announcement — God is for the poor. The question for the church is — who are we for?
Wherever we are on the spectrum of emotion around Mother’s Day, giving ourselves and others space for authenticity can be a gift. Jesus said, “Be happy with those who are happy and weep with those that weep” – it’s a flow kind of thing that has rhythm and balance and warmth, like the womb of a good mother.
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