Service Highlights or Announcements for this Sunday
Highlights for Worship: March 14th, 2021.
Announcements:
- Pastor James is encouraging us to join him in the daily devotions by Father Richard Rohr on the Center for Action and Contemplation. Click this link to find these daily devotions.
- Click here to sign-up for the current Lenten Book Study.
- Come check out our virtual Gather(ing) via Zoom on Wednesdays at 7 pm. We would LOVE to see you there. Come ready to discuss our scripture passage and raise our voices in song! If you would like the Zoom link, please sign up here. Sign up for the Gather Zoom meeting information here.
Reflection of the Week
Highlights for Worship: March 14th, 2021.
We continue our Lenten sermon series “Loving Life” by focusing on living “Life in the Spirit.” In Jesus’s conversation with Rabbi Nicodemus, it becomes clear that, though he is a teacher of religion, Nicodemus is not yet alive in God’s Spirit (John 3:1-8, 16-17). What a strange truth that, though we remain among the living, our outlook on life can become hopeless and dead if we allow it. Let us explore together how Christian contemplation and acts of Christian service have the power to revive our souls!
During these 40 days before Easter, we will continue to honestly assess whether we love the life we lead or whether cynicism, frustration, or despair have eclipsed life’s joy.
To clear-away the negativity that clouds our view, we will practice Christian contemplation, growing in our ability to recognize God’s Spirit in any time or place. Contemplation is the practice of merely living, full of the love of self, God, and neighbor.
We will follow Father Richard Rohr’s wise counsel, one of the foremost Christian spiritual growth teachers in our time. Fr. Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation daily devotions are designed to help us to live more gratefully in our skin and in this world which God has created.
May this Lenten season be a sacred one so that we may rise on Easter morning, free from our burdens and newly alive in God’s Spirit.
I hope we can worship together virtually this Sunday!
Pastor James
Scripture Passages of the Week
John 3:1-8, 16-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
