Not just skin deep

“Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-734846. All rights reserved.”

Bulletin Watch

March 26, 2023   

Series:   A Table in the Wilderness

Modeled after Jesus’ forty days in the desert, Lent is a time to become more open to God through the vulnerabilities of life. It comes with an especially poignant invitation to join with others in bringing our doubt, fear, sorrow, loneliness, and dryness before God, hoping to taste God’s promised provision in the deserts of life.  Can God really spread a table before us in the presence of global and personal fears and sorrow? The answer, of course, is yes! God spreads a table before us in the wilderness, in the face of all our greatest fears (Psalm 23:5). This series highlights one biblical character each week along with the way God provided food for them in their wildernesses.  

LENT 5           ‘Not just skin deep’

Scripture:      1 Samuel 25

"Abigail's beauty is both inner and outer. Her lovely appearance is balanced in the text by the word "discretion" (v. 33). Abigail is as beautiful inwardly as she is outwardly. Abigail's beauty is a witness to the God-created, God-sustained, God-blessed life that's everywhere present but frequently obscured by willfulness and blasphemy. Abigail's beauty surprises David out of his sudden plunge into ugliness, and he sees and hears God again." - Eugene Peterson, Leap Over the Wall, pg. 85.

All are welcome to worship with us online or in-person @ 10:00 am.

The God who sees

“Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-734846. All rights reserved.”

Bulletin Watch

March 12, 2023   

Series:   A Table in the Wilderness

Modeled after Jesus’ forty days in the desert, Lent is a time to become more open to God through the vulnerabilities of life. It comes with an especially poignant invitation to join with others in bringing our doubt, fear, sorrow, loneliness, and dryness before God, hoping to taste God’s promised provision in the deserts of life.  Can God really spread a table before us in the presence of global and personal fears and sorrow? The answer, of course, is yes! God spreads a table before us in the wilderness, in the face of all our greatest fears (Psalm 23:5). This series highlights one biblical character each week along with the way God provided food for them in their wildernesses.   This week:  God’s wilderness provision of water and a future for Hagar & Ishmael (Genesis 21). 

LENT 3           ‘The God who sees’

Scripture:      Genesis 21 

To watch a child die is a sorrow no parent should ever have to endure.  In today’s story, Hagar, abandoned by Abraham and Sarah, takes her son out into the wilderness, fearing the worst.  But, God is with Ishmael (the first person in Genesis about whom that is said).  Hagar and Ishmael do count and are not forgotten by God.

All are welcome to worship with us online or in-person @ 10:00 am.

IMAGE –  Hagar in the desert (Marc Chagall)

A Table in the Wilderness: Bread in Kazakhstan

“Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-734846. All rights reserved.”

Bulletin Watch

February 26, 2023      

Series:   A Table in the Wilderness

Modeled after Jesus’ forty days in the desert, Lent is a time to become more open to God through the vulnerabilities of life. It comes with an especially poignant invitation to join with others in bringing our doubt, fear, sorrow, loneliness, and dryness before God, hoping to taste God’s promised provision in the deserts of life.  Can God really spread a table before us in the presence of global and personal fears and sorrow? The answer, of course, is yes! God spreads a table before us in the wilderness, in the face of all our greatest fears (Psalm 23:5). This series highlights one biblical character each week along with the way God provided food for them in their wildernesses.   This week we continue with Israel, disheartened and hungry in the wilderness – Exodus 16.

LENT 2    ‘A Table in the Wilderness: Bread in Kazakhstan’ 

Scripture:      Exodus 16

The party is over.  After a stunning liberation from Egypt, and ecstatic worship led by Miriam after the dramatic rescue at the Red Sea, Israel is mired in deep disappointment.  Hungry, exhausted, frustrated, they grumble/complain/murmur at their plight.  ‘What’s for dinner?’ they ask.  Join us as we explore the biblical story and our story through prayer, song, and scripture.

All are welcome to worship with us online or in-person @ 10:00 am.

*  The Israelites gathering manna (Ercole de Roberti).  The story of the Israelites gathering manna – a heavenly ‘bread’ that fed them during their travels in the wilderness before reaching Israel – was often interpreted as a forerunner of the ‘heavenly bread’ of Christ’s body.

 

Jesus in the Wilderness

“Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-734846. All rights reserved.”

Bulletin Watch

February 26, 2023      

Series:   A Table in the Wilderness

Modeled after Jesus’ forty days in the desert, Lent is a time to become more open to God through the vulnerabilities of life. It comes with an especially poignant invitation to join with others in bringing our doubt, fear, sorrow, loneliness, and dryness before God, hoping to taste God’s promised provision in the deserts of life.  Can God really spread a table before us in the presence of global and personal fears and sorrow? The answer, of course, is yes! God spreads a table before us in the wilderness, in the face of all our greatest fears (Psalm 23:5). This series highlights one biblical character each week along with the way God provided food for them in their wildernesses.   This week we begin with Jesus in the wilderness – Matthew 4.1-11.

LENT 1    Jesus in the Wilderness

Scripture:      Matthew 4.1-11

“And angels attended him.” Jesus sets the example of provision in the wilderness. Despite modern conveniences and protections, we know that we still feel vulnerable to the anxieties of the world, especially in these last few years. The biblical witness is that no place is as transforming as the wilderness, and we can go there because Jesus went there first.

All are welcome to worship with us online or in-person @ 10:00 am.

Mountain- top Experiences

“Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-734846. All rights reserved.”

Bulletin Watch

February 19, 2023      

Transfiguration Sunday

Sermon:        ‘Mountain-top Experiences’

Scripture:      Matthew 17.1-9

‘It was Jesus of Nazareth all right, the man they had tramped many a dusty mile with…the one they’d seen hungry, tired, foot-sore as the rest of them.  But it was also the Messiah, the Christ, in his glory.  It was the holiness of the man shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it they were almost blinded.’   [Frederick Buechner]

All are welcome to worship with us online or in-person @ 10:00 am.

IMAGE –  Luminescence by Livan Kudriashev