As a guide through the Lenten season, we are reading Alicia Britt Chole's 40 Days Of Decrease as a congregation and allowing it to inform the teaching each Sunday morning. 

Text: Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18

Takeaways:

• When we go into rooms this week, instead of thinking "Here I am," let's think, "There you are."
• Spend one whole day not looking at our own reflections.
• Begin every day this week saying out loud "I am Abba's Child. I am beloved."

Benediction:

May all that is unforgiven in you be released; may your fears yield their deep tranquilities; may all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

As a guide through the Lenten season, we are reading Alicia Britt Chole's 40 Days Of Decrease as a congregation and allowing it to inform the teaching each Sunday morning. 

Text: Luke 18:35-19:10

Takeaways:

• Knock the hustle
• Jesus is surprising if we allow him to be. Don't look past what is in front of you.
• Where or by whom do I need to allow myself to be seen?
• Who do I - actively or passively - isolate?
• Read a good poem

Benediction:

May all that is unforgiven in you be released; may your fears yield their deep tranquilities; may all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

As a guide through the Lenten season, we are reading Alicia Britt Chole's 40 Days Of Decrease as a congregation and allowing it to inform the teaching each Sunday morning. 

Text: Acts 16:1-10

Takeaways:

• In the story, there is movement
• Wherever we go, Jesus is there
• Take a walk this week, see what happens
• Pay attention to the coincidences

Benediction:

May all that is unforgiven in you be released; may your fears yield their deep tranquilities; may all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

As circumstances allow, we like to have the visual artist(s) for the current month take a few minutes to give us a word about their art and what goes into it. In February 2016, the portraits of the MULA (most urgent | least available) exhibit made their way onto the walls at 144 S Mason. Photographer Steve Stanton shares about letting the folks in these portraits know they are seen, and that we are all seen. 

More information at donatemula.org

As a guide through the Lenten season, we are reading Alicia Britt Chole's 40 Days Of Decrease as a congregation and allowing it to inform the teaching each Sunday morning. 

Text: John 12:12-19

Takeaways:

• Instead of regretting who I was or wasn't, what do I need to start or stop right now?
• What regret do I need to fast?

Benediction:

May all that is unforgiven in you be released; may your fears yield their deep tranquilities; may all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

Text:

John 17:20-23

Takeaways:

• There is no trying for his glory. We have received his glory.
• Have I received his glory?
• What do I need to clean up, to let out?

Benediction:

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

Text:

Romans 12:1-16

Takeaways:

• Practice who you want to be.

Benediction:

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

14ers is a 4-week series taking place across the Timberline organization, addressing the mountains we want to climb together. 

Text:

Mark 9:1-13 

Takeaways:

• We are part of a huge story
• Our stories are informed by people we can see and people we can't.
• In the stories of the Kingdom, everyone is always there.
• Practice gratitude for people who've given us access to a better story.

Benediction:

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

14ers is a 4-week series taking place across the Timberline organization, addressing the mountains we want to climb together. 

Text:

Matthew 28:16-20

Takeaways:

• Discipleship is about what we do and who we are while we're going places and doing stuff.
• People don't want to be told what to believe by people they don't like.
• There's really only one command we gotta get right - love.

14ers is a 4-week series taking place across the Timberline organization, addressing the mountains we want to climb together. 

Text:

Matthew 28:16-20

Takeaways:

• When I lose hope, I need to talk to someone who loves me.
• We are the worshipers and we are the doubters. We are always both.
• Whatever we do and wherever we go in His name, Jesus is with us.

It is the first Sunday of 2016 and we are reminded again of our chance at Newness.

TEXT

Ecclesiastes 1:4-9; 3:1-22

2 days after Christmas there are moments of bells and moments of canons as we head into a new year. What will we hear? What will we do? 

TEXT

Isaiah 9, Psalm 127

PRAYER

Occupy Our Calendars by Walter Brueggemann

Our times are in your hands:

But we count our times for us;

we count our days and fill them with us;

we count our weeks and fill them with our busyness;

we count our years and fill them with our fears.

And then caught up short with your claim,

Our times are in your hands!

Take our times, times of love and times of weariness,

Take them all, bless them and break them,

give them to us again,

slow paced and eager,

fixed in your readiness for neighbour.

Occupy our calendars,

Flood us with itsy-bitsy, daily kairoi,

in the name of your fleshed kairos.  Amen

Advent Prayer:

In our dark nights, we cry to you
In our bright days, we forget what we longed for

May our cries echo
May our longing be immediate

In our sharp minds, we pray for your coming
In our wavering hearts, we can't decide if the road is open or closed

May you clear the decks
May we raise the gates on our tollbooths.

Here we gather as hopeful witnesses to revolutionary birth.
Going from here we encounter oppression in mind and action.

Disrupt us to new life
Advent us to your longing for your children.

Let not sorrow be ruler.
Clear the way for Joy as the undexpected King.

Amen.

Scripture: 

Psalm 23

Advent Prayer:

In our dark nights, we cry to you
In our bright days, we forget what we longed for

May our cries echo
May our longing be immediate

In our sharp minds, we pray for your coming
In our wavering hearts, we can't decide if the road is open or closed

May you clear the decks
May we raise the gates on our tollbooths.

Here we gather as hopeful witnesses to revolutionary birth.
Going from here we encounter oppression in mind and action.

Disrupt us to new life
Advent us to your longing for your children.

Let not sorrow be ruler.
Clear the way for Joy as the undexpected King.

Amen.

Scripture: 

Psalm 44

Advent Prayer:

In our dark nights, we cry to you
In our bright days, we forget what we longed for

May our cries echo
May our longing be immediate

In our sharp minds, we pray for your coming
In our wavering hearts, we can't decide if the road is open or closed

May you clear the decks
May we raise the gates on our tollbooths.

Here we gather as hopeful witnesses to revolutionary birth.
Going from here we encounter oppression in mind and action.

Disrupt us to new life
Advent us to your longing for your children.

Let not sorrow be ruler.
Clear the way for Joy as the undexpected King.

Amen.

Advent Prayer:

In our dark nights, we cry to you
In our bright days, we forget what we longed for

May our cries echo
May our longing be immediate

In our sharp minds, we pray for your coming
In our wavering hearts, we can't decide if the road is open or closed

May you clear the decks
May we raise the gates on our tollbooths.

Here we gather as hopeful witnesses to revolutionary birth.
Going from here we encounter oppression in mind and action.

Disrupt us to new life
Advent us to your longing for your children.

Let not sorrow be ruler.
Clear the way for Joy as the undexpected King.

Amen.

Scripture: 

Psalm 30

Advent Benediction:

A Future Not Our Own by Archbishop Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Passage: 

Psalm 107

Comtemplation:

Are we willing to clear the decks of our expectations of the ways Jesus will encounter us?

Are we willing to let the creator be creative in the ways he will manifest his Holy refrain?

Reflection:

Have I ever "known" something about God and changed my mind later?

Is there a place right now where I feel like Gamaliel - in the middle?

Passage: 

Acts 4:32 - 5:11

Reflection:

Where am I seeing great fear & why?

Where am I seeing great grace?

Passage: 

Acts 3:1-10

Reflection:

Would it surprise you if God did a miracle right in front of you?

Who or what do I need to start looking at?

Dick Foth helps out for the second week in a row to help us remember the unbelievable, unimaginable, and unstoppable.

Passage: 

Luke 15:11-32

Reflection:

Our good friend Dick Foth steps in to pinch hit and speaks of joy & knowing who we are. 

Passage: 

Matthew 25:14-30

Reflection:

In what area do we desire to be more faithful with what we have been trusted with, and what does that faithfulness look like?