12/02/2018 Luke 21:25-36 Chris Breslin (Bumper music:Because the Night is Long by Music from the Gathering Church (2010))   “Advent is not for the faint of heart.” – Fleming Rutledge   “[The writer] may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the […]

11/25/2018 John 18:33-38a Chris Breslin   “A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer   “The offering of gold, frankincense, and myrrh are completed by the caganer’s offering of [crap].” -Adam Hearlson, The Holy No: Worship as a Subversive Act   “As a preacher of the gospel for a great […]

11/18/2018 Micah 6:1-8 Stephanie Holmer   “Whatever I had read as a child about the saints had thrilled me. I could see the nobility of giving one’s life for the sick, the maimed, the leper. But there was another question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place? […]

11/11/2018 Mark 12:35-44 Chris Breslin   “The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase […]

11/04/2018 Luke 13:10-17 Matthew Rehnborg   “When the prophet dares to expose to the light the congregation who is living in darkness, the initial reaction is to wince in pain. Our eyes have adjusted to the dark. Our world has been designed by shadows, not truth…The preacher causes pain, but slowly, very slowly, we adjust to the light […] If […]

10/28/2018 Isaiah 60:15-22 & Revelation 21:1-5 Chris Breslin   “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” -T.S. Eliot (from Little Gidding in the Four Quartets)   “The sin-ruined creation of Genesis is restored in the sacrifice-renewed creation of Revelation.” –Eugene Peterson […]

10/21/2018 Genesis 22:1-18 Chris Breslin   “ThroughAbraham and his family, God will bless the whole world. Shimmering like a mirage in the deserts through which Abraham wandered was the vision of a new world, a rescued world, a world blessed by the Creator once more, a world of justice, where God and his people would live in harmony, where human […]

10/14/2018 Genesis 22:1-18 Chris Breslin   “The church is a countercultural community of discipleship, and this community is the primary addressee of God’s imperatives.” -Richard Hays “Yahweh was setting up Abraham to undergo ‘a massive paradigm shift from a god who requires sacrifice to a God who makes sacrifice.” -Gregory Boyd “[Christian] sacrifice does not consist in a giving of […]

10/07/2018 Genesis 2:25-3:7 Chris Breslin   “Genesis 3 paints the scenario that is the hinge point of history. Humanity grasps at its own peace at the expense of the peace of all. The relationships that were declared tov me-od (very good)in the beginning all are decimated. Here lies the wreckage of that fateful moment of original sin, the moment when […]

We introduced and blessed three new members of our Steering Group: Bettejean Cramer, Carolina Kammel, and Sarah Neff. We also introduced and blessed our 2018-19 academic year Pastoral Intern from Duke Divinity School, Matthew Rehnborg.