11/29/15 Chris Breslin Isaiah 11:29 “He who sings, prays twice.” –Saint Augustine “To listen seriously to music and to perform it are among our most potent ways of learning what it is to live with and before God.” –Rowan Williams O Antiphons Durham Herald-Sun article about Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham Vigil Advent Resources Light Upon Light: A Literary […]

“God gives so that we can exist and flourish, but not only for that, God gives so that we can help others exist and flourish as well. God’s gifts aim at making us into generous givers, not just fortunate receivers. God gives so that we, in human measure, can be givers too.” –Miroslav Volf   “We’re buying gifts for our […]

11/15/15 Chris Breslin Luke 6:46-49   “To build your house well is, ironically, to be nudged beyond its doors.” – Richard Rohr   “Faith sets life on a new foundation, and only on this new foundation can I live justified before God. This foundation is the living, dying and rising of the Lord Jesus Christ… Faith means to base life […]

11/8/15 Matt Tintera Mark 4:1-20 “There is an entire ecosystem in a handful of soil: bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, earthworms. Through their breeding and dying such creatures vivify the world…Soil is not dirt. It is a living organism, or rather a collection of organisms, and it must be fed. Soil both craves life and wants to produce more life, even […]

11/1/15 Chris Breslin Luke 18:1-17 “You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.” –St. Teresa of Avila   “Although…you could rightly and properly be a severe judge over us sinners…now through your mercy implant in our hearts a comforting trust in your fatherly love, and let us experience the sweet and pleasant savor of a childlike certainty […]

10/25/15 Chris Breslin Luke 15:1-32 “Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.” –Marilynne Robinson (Home) “Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.” –Tim Keller “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, […]

10/18/15 Chris Breslin Matthew 13:44-52 “You thought God was an architect, now you know He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames In 24 frames.” –Jason Isbell   “He has left us without root or soil or country, having Himself become our root and soil and country.” […]

9/27/15 Chris Breslin Matthew 13:44-52 “What do we really believe? I mean, believe in such a way that our lives depend on it?” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer “The kingdom is not the pearl, and it is not the merchant. The kingdom is what comes after ‘it is like…’” –Amy-Jill Levine “The kingdom is not a thing after all, but a verb, and […]

9/20/15 Chris Breslin Matthew 13:21-24 Oak Church’s First Anniversary “Parables are imaginary gardens with real toads in them. They create an imaginary world that reflects reality.” –Klyne Snodgrass “His (Van Gogh’s) paintings are color-filled parables of genesis moments, generatively given to us in flesh with canvas and paint.” –Makoto Fujimura “Racism is like that local creeping kudzu vine that swallows […]

9/13/15 Chris Breslin Psalm 19 Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. –Mary Oliver “It is distinctively human to bring praise to conscious expression in voice, but the creatures remind us that this distinctively human form of praise is worthless unless, like them, we live our whole lives to the glory of God.” –Richard Bauckham […]