Teaching
We gather around the scriptures to learn the unfolding story of God.
A Story of Restoration – Hosea 1:2; 3:1-3
The Story of Hosea offers a jarring illustration of Israel’s unfaithfulness and idolatry through the marriage of Hosea and Gomer. But the story of Hosea does not dwell on the actions of Gomer, but rather it emphasizes God's action through Hosea and the restoration we are all offered.
Ordinary Time – John 14:15-23
Following the victory of Jesus’ resurrection, the natural impulse would be to think ‘practicing resurrection’ is to move from mountain top to mountain top; from spectacle to spectacle. However, anyone who has followed Jesus for a significant amount of time knows that most of our life is lived between mountain tops, in the mundane and ordinary. Jesus’ invitation is to become aware of His presence in every moment of life.
Friendship – John 15:12-17
In a society where friendship is networking, a strategy for career moves, a transaction, where you can be lonely in a room full of people, Jesus-followers can demonstrate a friendship that reflects Christ's wholly undeserved and self-sacrificial death. To live as Jesus did, to practice resurrection, we must be in community. We have to have friends. You cannot preach the Gospel alone. You cannot love alone. You cannot follow Jesus alone.
Meals – Luke 19:1-10
In the West, we are experiencing a monumental shift in which the culture at large is increasingly post-Christian. It's not that culture has abandoned Christianity altogether, it is that culture is reacting against Christianity. In this moment, how do we proclaim the good news when so many have already decided that it is not good news? We believe that there is a practice of Jesus that subverts the ideological defenses of our neighbors and sets a table for an encounter with the Kingdom.
Sabbath – Mark 2:27-28
What do we do about our never-ending pressure to have more, to work more, and to be defined by our work? In the Christian tradition, our response is Sabbath, a practice that frees us.
Wonder – Luke 24:1-12
The Resurrection of Jesus is the defeat of death and the beginning of a new creation. It stands as an invitation into a new story; a story that replaces our disenchantment with wonder.
Scripture In the Wilderness – Matthew 5:17-20
It is the best-selling book of all time and sits at the center of our cultural consciousness, yet the Bible remains a difficult element of our faith. The confusion around the Bible might simply be that we’ve lost sight of what it is; a library of ancient writings, of both divine and human origin, that tell a unified story that leads to Jesus.
Simplicity In the Wilderness – Matthew 6:25-33
In the West, we have come to believe that stuff can satisfy our deepest longings–we would never admit that, but our closets, amazon purchases, and bank account betray us. The problem isn’t just stuff; it is the place that stuff occupies in our heart. Jesus’ alternative; “seek first the Kingdom.'“
Silence & Solitude In the Wilderness – Mark 1:32-34
We have a world that does its best to drown out silence and medicate loneliness with noise. When we experience a moment of silence it feels disruptive, unsettling, and agitating. Silence does not come naturally to us. But there is something beautiful in silence and solitude; It is where we enter into the mystery, the unknown, and realize that God is already there and has always been there.
Fasting In the Wilderness – Matthew 4:16-18
The human condition is to experience a complex knot of desires. Many of those desires are God-given, good, and necessary for life on Earth. Many are disordered, nefarious, and destructive. For millennia, fasting, going without food and drink for a period of time, has been a core practice of the Church; this is in part because it brings our body and spirit into alignment clarifying our desires and reordering our appetites.
Prayer In the Wilderness – Luke 22:39-45
Lent provides an opportunity for us to practice drawing closer to God in the midst of suffering and the wilderness. We look to the example of Jesus, who in the moments where suffering is most difficult turned to prayer.
In the Wilderness – Luke 4:1-13
As the Church of the West, we are far more familiar with the God of the mountaintop than the God of the wilderness. When suffering crashes into our lives we often wonder where God is, and Lent is an annual practice that teaches us to find His presence in our wilderness. The Wilderness is a place of harsh clarity, an uncluttered discomfort, where our hearts are laid bare before God– and we discover one that is always there.
Contending – Luke 11:1-4
The biblical narrative offers us a brief depiction of a malevolent being hellbent on our suffering; It suggests that chaos has been planned, disease sown, and violence cultivated. Our response to this darkness is not to cower or shrink back but to become people of prayer and action, injecting love into the darkness.
Confession – Luke 11:1-4
In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray, “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us”,a prayer of confession. But contrary to popular belief, confession is not simply a reminder of our fallenness, but an assertion of our forgiveness. We confess not because God needs a verbal record of our wrongdoings, but because we need to cultivate brutal honesty about what we have done wrong in order to enjoy God’s abundant forgiveness.
Petition – Luke 11:1-4
Jesus teaches us to pray; “Give us each day our daily bread”. This instruction to petition our needs reminds us that our natural longings for financial security, for a child, for healing, for bread are not written off as evil, selfish, embarrassing, or shameful. Rather, these desires are welcomed by God. And as we bring them to God, we trust him to order them, to open the eyes of our heart that we might see him.
Intercession – Luke 11:1-4
In the beginning, humanity was invited to be God’s co-laborers; intercessors called to freely and joyfully partner with him to cultivate our good world. As the story goes, humans have gotten into the habit of contributing to the chaos, rather than cultivating it. However, God’s invitation, to be His collaborator in pushing back the dark, is still open. The first move in accepting that invitation is to clasp our hands in prayer; for in prayer we collaborate with God to set his world back to rights.
Communion – Luke 11:1-4
In Luke 11, the disciples say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus’ response is both a pattern and a script for prayer, a guideline for prayer and a prayer we regularly recite. It is the place we go to when we ourselves wonder, “Jesus, how do we pray?” However, the starting place of prayer is not "how", but "who"?
Epiphany – Matthew 2:1-12
As the feast of Epiphany, we commemorate the Magi's visit to the baby Jesus and the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. It is this beautiful reminder that the gift of Christ is one that goes beyond the borders of the Jewish people and has become a gift to all people. The question remains how will we receive this gift?
Advent – Love
Although love takes center stage in this season, we miss the gritty nature of God’s love because we’ve confused love with sentimentality. But the Love of God cannot be described with sanitized cliches or impersonal definitions; for the Love of God is told in dysfunctional family trees, gritty action, strange stories, and dirty glory.
Advent – Peace
The phrase “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” is common throughout the Holiday season. But this familiarity strips the idea of peace of its power reducing it to sentimentality or inner calm. The Story of Christmas tells of a Peace far better, far more robust, and far more powerful. May we not be distracted with anything else.