Ancient Anchors: Ordinary Time 2024
Creation, covenants, coats of many colours—the Old Testament is filled with stories that have been told for thousands of years. Many serve as “narrative anchors” for both Jewish and Christian faiths. For some, however, these tales have become so familiar, so routine, that they have lost their ability to surprise, inspire, or guide us. When this happens, do we look elsewhere? Cut them loose? Or might we be able to retrieve these anchoring stories for our present moment? “Retrieval theology” is discernment that “looks back in order to look forward.” It does not merely repeat an ancient story for its own sake, but rather reforms it, viewing the past from the vantage of the present, through the living Spirit of God, allowing for—even expecting—new insights. Thus, this September, as we embark on a year of God-centred storytelling following the Narrative Lectionary, we will work to retrieve these ancient stories of the Bible. In doing so, we trust that God will continue to anchor us today as we sail into future waters.
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Season of Creation, 2024
As has been our practice for some time now, REC concludes the summer months with a series dedicated to creation care. Before God, we affirm that we are co-creatures and part of all that God has made. Our wellbeing is interwoven with the wellbeing of the Earth.
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A Cloud of Witnesses: Volume 3
The Christian faith spans generations, languages, cultures, and continents… 2000 years of people experiencing and expressing God’s action in the world. These voices have shaped us, whether we know it or not. And so, this summer, preachers will put some of that shaping on display. Instead of writing new sermons for each Sunday, preachers will be speaking with the words of someone else—words they’ve received that have gotten under their skin. Be it a mentor, a family member, a famous person, someone long deceased… This series nods to those who have gone before us, the great ‘Cloud of Witnesses’ that we stand with across time and space—and the gifts God exercises through them to this day.
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The Sermon on the Mount
It’s the key interpretive text of the Gospel of Matthew. It’s been the foundational Scripture for Anabaptists for the last 500 years. It’s a passage that includes some of Jesus’ most famous and enduring words: “Blessed are the peacemakers…” “Our Father…” “Turn the other cheek…” “Do unto others…” It’s Matthew chapters 5-7, the “Sermon on the Mount”—the concentrated “Greatest Hits” of Jesus’ teachings. Within these words we get the distilled essence of what it looks like to step one foot into the incoming Kin-dom of Heaven, here, today. Thus, this Easter, as we celebrate Christ’s resurrection as the beginning of God’s New Creation among us, we will explore the ways we can join in that life of Christ now, by deeply exploring the Sermon on the Mount.
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Jeremiah: Prophet of Resilience
Jeremiah lived through deep pain—his own and his people’s –invasion, brutality, famine, deportation. Human beings cannot absorb extreme violence as it occurs. The consequence of this shutting down is that memories of distressing events become fragmented, like a shattered mirror reflecting back slivers of stories and a cracked capacity to respond. Even so, these splinters take up residence in the mind … where they have a life of their own. Yet somehow, Jeremiah’s words are that of resilience and theological re-imagination. The tears of Jeremiah, his scathing rants, his soaring poems and powerful promises flow across the pages of his book waking hearts of stone and coaxing passive victims into active meaning-makers and world rebuilders. Jeremiah points to God who is creating a new covenant in response to shattered trust, who is transforming devastation into a context for consolation and hope. Jesus, too, lived in times of chaos and deep pain, particularly in his final days–military occupation, religious authoritarianism, betrayal of trust, abandonment by his community. Yet Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem trusting that God was with him, leading him through the suffering to resurrected life and love on the other side, both for himself and for the world. Today, wars rage throughout the world. We face overwhelming personal challenges. When we take seriously the life of Christ, the words of Jeremiah, and the hard fought conviction that God goes with us through the unthinkable, we, like Jeremiah’s audience before us, become receptive to the Spirit’s transformative work waking…
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Epiphany 2024: Truth
Authors of the Old Testament consistently describe the mystery of God’s character this way: “Compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness.” That last word, ‘faithfulness,’ is the hebrew word ’emet,’ which can also be translated as ‘truth’. It’s where we get the expression ‘Amen,’ meaning, “that’s the truth.” ‘Emet’ can refer to correct ideas or concepts. When it describes people, however, it refers to reliable character or trustworthiness. To say that God is full of ’emet’ means that God tells the truth, and even more, that God is faithful and trustworthy. In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises that the Truth will set us free (8:24), and later claims to be the Truth (14:6). Thus, in this era where the desire for authenticity is high, and “fake news” is a commonplace accusation, we listen closely for Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. What does this mean for us in a pluralistic, post-modern society? What does it mean to be a people of Truth?
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Advent 2023: How Does a Weary World Rejoice?
Christ was born into a weary world… a world of oppression, hunger, and poverty. When Christ came, light shone into the dark corners of the world. This Advent, we hold space for our weariness and our joy. Let us seek a ‘thrill of hope’ in our weary world. Let us welcome joy, even as we may, like the prophet Isiaiah, ‘seek comfort’.
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Our Journey Towards Inclusion
On November 26, 2023, River East hosted an event retelling the story of how we processed and arrived at our Inclusivity Statement. For another telling of this story (in writing this time), see “The REC Story: A Journey Toward Inclusivity.” Then, on January 14, 2024, River East hosted another event where we told some of the theological stories that undergird our statement. For some more of the biblical and theological background that formed our statement, see “Talking Points from the Bible for Full Inclusion of LGBTQ+ Persons.” For some remarks of how this statement interacts with the Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, see “The Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith and Full Inclusion of LGBTQ+ Persons at River East Church.“
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Voices Together
It is said that a congregation’s musical core contains roughly 200 songs. In this Worship series we are intentional about broadening our singing repertoire. We will sing old, beloved hymns, songs with new or revised lyrics. AND we learn music new to us, written by a diversity of people of a wide variety of cultures, languages, and ages. The Voices Together hymnal honours the faith of past generations in a unique way, including words from each of the 15 centuries before Mennonites entered the scene. Theologically, the hymnal includes songs which may be an accurate reflection of our faith, OR, they may challenge us from one direction or another. Over these five weeks note which songs express some of the cries of your own heart. Pay attention to which songs give fresh expression to the experiences of our time. Or which ones play on repeat within your spirit all week long. Are there songs which sweep you up into a sense of God’s presence? Or raise questions for you? Or name a surprising aspect of faith?
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Hunting Magic Eels?
500 years ago, Llanddwyn Island was known for its church’s holy well. According to legend, the well was the home to enchanted eels that could predict your romantic future. If you threw a coin into the well and the eels disturbed it, your lover would be faithful for life. Today, we chuckle at receiving premarital counselling from enchanted eels—we cannot imagine making a pilgrimage to visit them and allowing their twitches to alter the course of our lives. And yet… the same forces that invite skepticism about magic eels invite skepticism of anything beyond our material vision. So…is God’s action in the world just another magic eel? …Or is there another way of looking at things? What if faith has much more to do with our attention, rather than forcing ourselves to believe unbelievable things? Join us this fall as together we explore a faith beyond magic eels, incorporating simple Christian practices that help us cultivate holy perception in our daily lives. Note: much of this series—including its title—was inspired by Richard Beck’s book, “Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age.”
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Season of Creation, 2023
Each year in September, followers of Christ from across the globe unite in a world wide celebration known as the ‘Season of Creation.’ This is a time of prayer and action to protect our common home. In worship we affirm that we are co-creatures and part of all that God has made. Our wellbeing is interwoven with the wellbeing of the Earth.
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A Cloud of Witnesses: Volume 2
The Christian faith spans generations, languages, cultures, and continents… 2000 years of people experiencing and expressing God’s action in the world. These voices have shaped us, whether we know it or not. And so, this summer, preachers will put some of that shaping on display. Instead of writing new sermons for each Sunday, preachers will be speaking with the words of someone else—words they’ve received that have gotten under their skin. Be it a mentor, a family member, a famous person, someone long deceased… This series nods to those who have gone before us, the great ‘Cloud of Witnesses’ that we stand with across time and space—and the gifts God exercises through them to this day.
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Her Gates Will Never Be Shut
Our stories shape us, giving our lives meaning and context, creating the lens by which we see the world. In many ways, the Christian journey is the ongoing work of adopting the story of God’s creating, redeeming, and sustaining of the cosmos, as our own. How we tell God’s story matters. Especially where it is headed. For the majority of Christians today, the story of God is headed to a stark divide. In this version, at the end of time, some people will enter into paradise with Jesus forever. All others, however, for whatever reason, will experience the fires of hell. The sheep and the goats. And you definitely don’t want to be a goat. Is this the most faithful way to finish God’s story? Pew Research says that 82% of Evangelicals answer, “yes.” But there is a minority view, one that proclaims the Gospel message that Christ’s Love ultimately reconciles all people to God—a universal salvation. This Easter, as we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, we will also be fleshing out the perspective of universal salvation. Together we will imagine how the Christian story can confidently declare that God’s love embraces all creation, God’s justice is never retributive, and Christ’s victory in the cross includes all people.
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There's a Wild Hope in the Wind
What is in the air these days? Teachers and therapists observe increased anxiety. Grocery shoppers notice increased prices. Scientists continue to proclaim the climate crisis. Insert your own experience here. Millennia ago, when the early church in Asia Minor faced hassle and harrassment, the letter of 1 Peter was written to offer a wild, living hope. The letter names suffering without flinching, and continually orients us to the hope we found in Christ. Thus, this Lent, this year, we will be reading through the entire book of 1 Peter, such that we might become increasingly aware of Christ’s wild hope in the wind.
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The Great Inversions
Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein, and others… the scientific world has undergone many paradigm shifts over the years. Be it understanding our place in the universe, the growth of our species, or phenomena at the limits of human understanding, it has often taken a total inversion of our perspective in order to see the world more clearly. Does faith ever follow a similar pattern? When and why can we turn faith on its head? This Epiphany season we will explore some of the ‘Great Inversions’ of the faith in Scripture—paradigm shifts that were disruptive and unintuitive, but led early believers into a deeper view of Christ and discipleship. Through this lens we will ask ourselves today: Might we be living with some ‘Newtonian’ Christian assumptions, when God is calling us to something much stranger and more wonderful?
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Love Up Close
For the past two Christmas seasons, our families and communities have been literally plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. Celebrations and traditions were interrupted and, for many, were forced online—connected perhaps, yet physically apart. Is it the same with God, we might wonder? That when God connects with us, it is more like a satellite streaming a Zoom call than the embrace of a family over a meal? This Advent season, we will be exploring ‘Love Up Close’—the mysterious intimacy of the incarnation. In this familiar Christmas story, we see a picture of God in solidarity with us, where there is no place too distant or lowly or surprising for the divine to draw near. Today, we wait for God once more.
View SeriesFour Faces of the Prodigal Son
It has been said that reading Scripture is like gazing at the faces of a gemstone, or like peering through a kaleidoscope. You can look at it and see how it catches the light in a particular way—but rotate it or observe it from a different angle, and the light will refract in new patterns. Is Scripture actually like this? Over the next four Sundays, Aaron Thiessen will be putting this metaphor to the test, with one of Jesus’ most famous parables as a case study: the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Many of us will be familiar with this story as an example of God’s patience, forgiveness, and redemption… but what happens if we examine this story from other angles? Must we understand the prodigal son as one who repents? Who should we see in the role of the prodigal son? Must the rich father be seen as a stand-in for God? Over this series we will explore all these questions and more, exposing the ways Scripture—and Jesus’ parables in particular—can shake us up in our modern world, as a sacred text.
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Season of Creation, 2022
In the three weeks where we worship outside, celebrating the beauty and messiness of the world around us, less distracted by objects of our own making, we hope to reorient our understanding of our place as creatures in God’s world, specially called to tend and keep all that God has made. How attuned are our ears to hearing the cries of those who are most affected by climate change? How ready are we to change our hearts and lives so that the resilient earth and all its creatures can begin to heal? When our bodies become sick, we are forced to slow down and pay attention, to pause so that we can diagnose what’s wrong and try to heal. Creation is crying out now that the earth is sick. We need desperately to pause, to listen deeply and take steps toward healing of both ourselves and our fellow creatures—of the Earth that is our home. We need to learn to live within the paradox of a world that is sick and a world that still shines with God’s beauty.
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Guiding Stars for Spiritual Borderlands
Borderlands, it’s a term we’ve recently been tossing around a lot at REC. Borderland can mean at the edge or far from the center. Alternatively, Borderland can mean the boundary space between two distinct entities. Then again, Borderland can mean unexplored frontiers. As REC approaches the 60th year of our congregational story, we’re conscious that we are once again journeying the borderlands. Our inclusivity statement shares our goal of reaching toward the margins, inviting those who have formerly not been welcomed among us. Our posture of patience within the wider confessional family means holding together distinct interpretations of God’s dreams for the world. Our conviction is that God is guiding us, not by a precise theological GPS system, nor by a mysteriously-mobile pillar of fire, but by guiding stars, fixed points in the sphere of God’s grand story from which we are orienting next steps. This summer, conscious that REC is in borderlands, this preaching series gazes starward at biblical borderland stories. Exploring the energy of liminality we pay attention to God’s patterns of guidance in the borderlands and identity formation in the wilderness.
View SeriesRapture in Reverse: Revelation as Christ's Renewing of the World
Beasts rising from the sea. Seals and trumpets and bowls. The Number of the Beast. And, some have said, secret descriptions about the end of the world? It’s the Book of Revelation, and it’s one of the strangest and most misunderstood books of the Bible. Packed full with ancient symbols, metaphors, and callbacks, it’s a book that is difficult to interpret. Yet, at the heart of it all is the image of Christ, depicted as a slain lamb, who subverts, resists, and conquers the forces of chaos that were pressing in on the early church. This is the same resurrected Christ we follow today, offering us peace, hope, and love in our modern day chaos. Thus, this Easter, we shall explore the enigmatic book of Revelation, cutting through its interpretive challenges with an eye to Christ’s victory on the cross, here and now—the ‘rapture’ in reverse.
View SeriesLent 2022: Humility
Philippians 2 opens by naming community dynamics that we’re hungry for: Encouragement in Christ Comfort in love Sharing in the Spirit Sympathy As River East Church navigates the complexities of returning to hybrid in-person and online worship of conversation with a wider family of faith about inclusion of living in a post-convoy nation and a world at war, what practices do Christ-followers live by so we can experience and share joy? Philippians 2 offers a counterintuitive pathway: Live with humility. Adopt the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus. It’s a value Christ-followers share with the seven Grandfather Teachings of the Plains First Nations This year during the season of Lent we walk with Jesus to the cross and pair our worship with the lengthy, many-layered process of repentance and healing after Canada’s settler peoples broke treaties and betrayed Canada’s First Nations. Our goal is to host one preaching series a year dedicated to each of the seven Grandfather Teachings.
View SeriesIn the Belly of a Beast: A Dive into the Book of Jonah
Cancelled vacations. Hospital stays. COVID symptoms. Winter blues. These days, it seems there are plenty of opportunities for us to feel as though we have been ‘swallowed whole,’ or living in the ‘belly of the beast.’ Of course, this is nothing new. Descent into darkness is an all-toocommon part of the human experience. Thousands of years ago, the story of the prophet Jonah was told and retold as a way to grapple with these experiences of darkness, yes… but also of vocation, truth-telling, justice, and wrestling with God. For four weeks we will dive into this well-known narrative, opening ourselves to where God may be speaking anew through these ancient words.
View SeriesGod of All Comfort
Forty per cent of Canadians say their mental health has deteriorated since the onset of the pandemic. Given the ever-changing events around COVID-19, people of all ages and backgrounds are experiencing varying degrees of a normal reaction to an abnormal event. If you are facing unprecedented stress, you are not alone. If you sense feelings of anxiety in those you love, you may have wondered how to help. How does the God of all Comfort offer us spiritual resources for mental wellness? How do we hear and respond to God when life seems too heavy to bear? This worship series is based on Mental Health Resources for Church Worship put together by Communitas Supportive Care Society and tested in worship by Emmanuel Mennonite Church (Abbotsford), First United Mennonite Church (Vancouver), Highland MB Church (Abbotsford) and Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship (Vancouver).
View SeriesAdvent 2021: Dare to Imagine...
In our time of uncertainty, division, and weariness, can we imagine a future of beauty and wonder and goodness? Can our desire to live into that future change who we are and how we move forward? This Advent, we will be invited to imagine God’s goodness, God’s embrace, God’s joy, God’s face, God’s creativity— God with us.
View SeriesJust Love
Over the last two years (and beyond), River East Church has wrestled with the question of inclusion—specifically, of how to better include those of the LGBTQ+ community. This process has created a lot of discussion about the Christian discipleship and human sexuality. However, almost none of this conversation has discussed Christian sexual ethics. If REC has been talking about the who of sex, we have not yet talked about the how. That is, does the Christian faith offer any moral guidelines for sexual activity in the 21st century? Is it really all about consent? This Fall, we will be tackling these questions in a series entitled ‘Just Love,’ following Margaret Farley’s book of the same name. Over five Sundays, we will explore 7 theological pillars that gesture toward a Christian sexual ethic. Society is absolutely correct to emphasize, over and again, the values of 1) do no unjust harm, and 2) free consent. The Christian imagination, however, calls us to consider five additional angles: 3) equality, 4) mutuality, 5) commitment, 6) social justice, and 7) fruitfulness. Through conversation with all seven of these characteristics, may we grapple with a Christian sexual ethic for our 21st century—start not with which actions are ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ but with how our actions build up our relationships.
View SeriesSeason of Creation 2021
For this short series, we are gathing outdoors to turn our attention to God’s creation—both its beauty, and our role within it.
View SeriesMarinate
When the meat or veggies have been marinating, and the barbeque is sizzling we expect that a tender, tasty mouthful of goodness will soon follow. This summer we marinate in the flavour of the psalms, soaking in the trustworthiness of God, absorbing their freedom to fully express the cries of the heart. AND this summer we also marinate in the perspectives of others whose lives differ from ours, becoming more tender as we steep in their worldview and worthiness and translate the ancient psalms into cries of their heart. It’s quite audacious, really, to expect that we can crawl inside someone else’s skin, perceive from their point of view, experience their suffering or guess their heart cry. And yet, as we practice, as we marinate in another’s needs and motivations, as we bring their world into conversation with God, we are transformed. This spiritual practice makes us more tender, more understanding and more compassionate, more able to absorb unfamiliar flavours of God’s presence. Each Sunday, we focus on one psalm. Taking the biblical text seriously, the speaker(s) will translate its images, actions, requests and gratitude into the voice of another person today.
View SeriesEastertide 2021: Christ Abides
The two disciples had been through hell. Their teacher and friend had been arrested in the middle of the night, sent to a kangaroo court, brutalized and executed by the state. They had thought he had been sent by God… but apparently not. Confused and depressed, the disciples did the only thing they could: go home. But as they walked Emmaus they encountered a strange man, apparently oblivious to the news of the day. They shared with him the painful events of the weekend, and invited him to dinner. It was then, unbelievably, that the two of them encountered the Risen Christ once more. What do we do with this kind of story? Is it limited to the world of Luke chapter 24? Does Christ really show up on our roads today? For some, such stories are myths at best, or illusions at worst. Yet, one doesn’t have to look long before one finds new stories of Christ’s presence—within our families, workplaces, or pews. Whether dramatic or mundane, these stories somehow resonate for those who experienced them, a feeling that the Risen Christ has reached toward us and is abiding with us. This Easter, as we retell the stories of the resurrected Jesus, we will be hearing these abiding stories from throughout our own community. They may be moments of acute connection, moments of feeling profoundly ministered to, or even the story of an entire lifetime—but in each case these stories point to a Christ who is in our here…
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Wisdom: Deep Calls to Deep
During Lent we create space in our spirits for Wisdom: The many faces of Wisdom within the biblical tradition; The manifold forms of Wisdom needed for depth in this life; The singular footpath when Jesus set his face toward the counterintuitive Wisdom of the cross. Three dynamics fed into the flow of Wisdom through this worship series. The Season of Lent During the 40 days of Lent, our spiritual journey is to walk intentionally with Jesus toward the cross. This journey is one of trust in God’s Wisdom, radically different than what comes naturally. This journey moves us through the distresses and seeming failure of self-sacrificing love to the regeneration of Christ’s resurrection. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action Canada’s settler peoples broke treaties and betrayed Canada’s First Nations. River East Church is finding ways to participate in the lengthy, many-layered process of repentance and healing. We aim to have one preaching series a year dedicated to each of the seven Grandfather Teachings of the Plains First Nations. The goal is to respect both First Nations values and Christian theology for their own sake, to celebrate points of resonance and to deepen our ability for dialogue. In 2018, in the season after Pentecost, we explored Courage. In 2019, during Lent, we explored the grit and grace of Honesty. And now, during Lent 2021, we pick up our COVID-stalled 2020 series to explore Wisdom, visualized in Indigenous teachings as a beaver. One of River East Church’s Core Values…
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ReVerb: The Moving Music of the Triune God
“It’s like an egg! It’s like water! It’s like a 5 dimension object intersecting with 4 dimensional space!” It’s the Trinity, and it’s a baffling conundrum. How can One also be Three? How can Three only be One? The idea of a Triune God subverts the foundations of our logic — an almost embarrassing math problem for which there is no solution. As such, we tend to relegate the Trinity to the corner, and understandably so. Let’s be honest — if the Church were to drop the Doctrine of the Trinity tomorrow, what would practically change for our shared faith? For many of us… not very much. This Epiphany, as we celebrate Resurrection and God’s New Creation, we will take a close look at the mystery of the Trinity. Rather than a problem to be solved, we will use the image of the Trinity as a porthole to peer through; a divine community we always already relate to. Rather than something to be explained, the Triune God is something to be experienced. As we grapple with the mystery of the Father, Son, and Spirit — the Three in One — we may find that the Triune community of God is one of Christianity’s greatest gifts for the world today.
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Cruciformed: Reprise
Way back in March, 2020, we began a series on Christian virtues, examining the contemporary qualities that form us into a people of God: patience, tolerance, obedience, among others. Little did we know how much the pandemic would test these qualities! That series was interrupted as we pivoted our worship online. We are now picking it back up where we left off. See below for the original blurb: — Freedom. Consent. If our world is a ship in choppy waters, these are often the bright guiding stars. Though the winds may blow and the waves may swell, a world built on freedom will one day bring us to shore. A world based on consent will one day keep us safe. Or so they say. While Freedom and Consent are no doubt vital for our time… do they form a complete constellation? For Christians, can these words fully capture how God is shaping us and guiding us as we walk in the Way of Christ? Christians have a much broader constellation to guide their ship to maturity, love, and justice. They called them ‘virtues’ — Christ-like characteristics that God brings forth in a people… characteristics that Christ-followers practice and habituate in community. Some virtues are familiar to contemporary ears: ‘Peace’ or ‘Tolerance.’ Others seem strange: ‘Obedience’ or ‘Humility.’ Each, however, names a particular arena where the Spirit grows fruit in our lives. Each shapes us to share the pain and puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God…
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New Norms, Nehemiah, and the Theology of Anti-climax
The pandemic forced us all to change. At River East, this meant shifting our worship online and connecting digitally. For many, this was a significant shift, and we longed for a time we could return to gather in our sanctuary. That time has come! But… is it exactly as we expected it? So much has changed over the past few months, and new norms might not yet feel normal. The ancient story of Nehemiah may hold resonance for us, we who return to a familiar space but can’t shake an unfamiliar situation. As one tasked to revitalize his beloved city, Nehemiah found that things are not always what they seem. May God give us the patience, strength, and creativity to follow that path again today.
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Year of Jubilee
It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood! For the Sundays of August 30th, September 6th, and September 13th, we gathered outdoors both to celebrate God’s creation… and to finally meet (physically distanced) after a season of Zoom worship.
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Signs and Wonders
The lame walk. The blind are given sight. The water turns to wine. The miracles of Jesus come in many forms, but they always interrupt the our normal, restore what is broken, and expose us to God’s New Creation in the here and now. This year has been a whirlwind, with widespread sickness, struggle, and unrest on a global scale. As such, for the remaining weeks of summer, our worship will be following several of the signs and wonders of Christ. May God continue to disrupt our present moments, bringing us healing and life.
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Materiality
What images come to mind when you think of the word ‘spirituality’? Hands folded in prayer? Light shining through a cloudy sky? A dog-eared and underlined Bible? Theologian Walter Brueggemann thinks these sorts of images aren’t inappropriate—but definitely incomplete. He laments that Christian spirituality typically evokes otherworldly, individual, or mental images in us, rather than the mundane, everyday interactions of our lives. He suggests we try using the word ‘materiality’, signalling that our spiritual lives are deeply intertwined with the material realm, everything from money to food, place and time. This summer we will be tracking with Bruggemann and this idea of materiality, following the chapters of his recent book, “Materiality as Resistance.”
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Christ, Community, and Coronavirus
The word “church” literally means “the assembly.” It’s really tricky to assemble during a global pandemic. What is the Church to do? Like everyone else, we’re figuring it out as we go. Be it prayers online, door-to-door grocery deliveries, digital worship, or the Social Distancing Scavenger Hunt, we are trying to find ways to be the Church during this difficult and unpredictable time. Below you’ll find recordings of some of our messages we streamed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout it all, we continue to proclaim that God is Love, God is active today, and Hope has a name: Jesus Christ.
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Cruciformed: The Shapes of Lent
Freedom. Consent. If our world is a ship in choppy waters, these are often the bright guiding stars. Though the winds may blow and the waves may swell, a world built on freedom will one day bring us to shore. A world based on consent will one day keep us safe. Or so they say. While Freedom and Consent are no doubt vital for our time… do they form a complete constellation? For Christians, can these words fully capture how God is shaping us and guiding us as we walk in the Way of Christ? Christians have a much broader consellation to guide their ship to maturity, love, and justice. They called them ‘virtues’ — Christ-like characteristics that God brings forth in a people… characteristics that Christ-followers practice and habituate in community. Some virtues are familiar to contemporary ears: ‘Peace’ or ‘Tolerance.’ Others seem strange: ‘Obedience’ or ‘Humility.’ Each, however, names a pariticular arena where the Spirit grows fruit in our lives. Each shapes us to share the pain and puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God in Christ may heal at those places.
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