Matthew 16:13-26 – Post-Covid is not Pre-Covid. We are not returning to normal. As we re-enter both our church building at Citizens and re-enter embodied society at large, we need to expand our imaginations of not just what can be, but what should be. In Matthew 16 we see the birth of the Christian imagination in the confession of Peter. What does the Christian Imagination teach us about our imaginations? This season we will focus on how we cultivate our time, our desires, our dreams, hopes and visions of the good life for personal and communal renewal.

Psalm 46 – A Psalm of Surrender.

A teaching about God's power; our limits; the life of Jacob; being defeated, and leading life with a limp.

Psalm 136 – Learning to Praise the Rescuer

Psalm 131 – In Psalm 131 we have a wonderfully short song that demonstrates Christian humility. Humility we find, is a discipline of contentedness with our limits, with God's love, and with waiting. This week we spend time challenging how to practice this contented posture. What forces of culture must we fight against? What does it require us personally to let go of? How do we balance the tension between action and inaction?

Psalm 6 – This week we look at a Psalm of Lament and ask the question, what is the difference between grumbling and lament? This psalm gives us a full route of lament, a complete circuit from David to God. Often we jump into a psalm and resonate with a section, but leave out the full conversation. It's important to follow the full pathway in any particular process of prayer. This psalm provides a trusting, restorative and hopeful model for us to follow as we are tempted to grumble, fall into self-pity, become overwhelmed, cope with sin habits, or simply give up.

Psalm 92 – This song is intended for use on the Sabbath Day, Israel's day of rest. It shows us how the Psalmist things about really resting. How do we rest? This week we consider how rest is an act of answering God and giving thanks. This is greatly opposed to the ways we commonly treat rest in our lives. Typically rest is something either a) we earn and do later as a reward, generally to think ourselves or b) a way of escaping from life and into pursuit toward our deepest desires, yearnings or goals unfulfilled by our work. Psalm 92 betrays these conventional, culturally accepted practices by showing how God enables us first, to rest regularly and without guilt: accepting where we are and giving credit to our creator and not ourselves for our gifts. Second, to rest as release not away from our unfulfilled strivings, further into self–but from the unfulfilled self into the fulfilling savior, Jesus Christ. Rest *is* release, but it is more. It is release given by Jesus, for Jesus, and traveling through Jesus' gift of grace. Here it is true renewal, directed outward into our practices, habits and neighbors.

Psalm 139 – The theme of Psalm 139 is inviting God to do in us what he is already capable of doing. David asks God to search him, but then expresses how God is already involved not just in every aspect inside of his life, but outside of it too. If God is everywhere, why invite him in? It turns out that David knew that with prayer, attitude is everything. Marcus Aurelius, the noted Stoic philosopher knew as much when he wrote “You have power of your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” In the Christian worldview, God is in everything and in control over everything. If this is so, then Aurelius’s statement would more accurately be “You have power of your attitude - not the nature of God. Realize this and you will find strength.” Our attitude is the most profound tool in our life. Unfortunately most of us live contrary to the attitude Jesus desires for us. We punish ourselves and others for failure. Paul, the Apostle writes that “there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus”. This then means that through Jesus alone, our attitude has the license to move from condemnation to conviction. Because of the death and atonement of Jesus, condemnation can be transformed by grace into conviction. This turns every failure into a second chance. This is the way of the Christian.

Psalm 1&2 – This week we tee off a new series in the Psalms. What is your primary source for truth? Psalm 1 tells us "blessed is" the one who makes the Word of God the primary source in which they interpret all of their life. Yet many of us have chosen other primary sources, and we interpret the word through the lens of these other sources and make the Bible a secondary source. Once we do this, we evaluate the Bible based on the pre-conceptions of the limits of mankind's senses and philosophies. But Psalm one tells us to walk not, stand not, and sit not, with sinful humankind as our authority.

John 21 – John's Epilogue

John 20 - John's Gospel account of the Resurrection does not portray a metaphorical illustration, but a real historical event. All of Christianity hinges around the fact that Jesus actually fully died, and fully lived again in a resurrected state. His full death gives the Cross its full meaning as the climax of not just John, but the whole Bible, and gives it complete meaning as the atonement. His full resurrection gives fulfillment to the cross and makes it not a tragedy, but the greatest sign of hope to all humankind. The question if we decide we believe this story is then, "Are you ready for your resurrection?" If Jesus is God over all live, are you willing for him to be God over your life?