Has Christianity lost its cultural voice? If that were true, how might it be regained? Let's do some Bible 101. When the Bible speaks of church or community, it uses the beautiful phrase Allēlōn—the 'one anothers' and 'each others' mentioned often in scripture. This is what it means for people to be filled with God’s Spirit.

Many of us are drawn by the beauty of Jesus' life and words. One often underrated and overlooked quality is a genuine affection for the character demonstrated throughout his life. Two words summarize that for us: grace and peace. George taught about how we can reclaim the beauty and power of these words in how we live.

SLIDES GEORGE READ IN OUR GATHERING

Walk joyfully on the earth and respond to that of God in every human being. —George Fox

Sometimes it's necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.

—Galway Kinnell (Poet)

The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith; God felt by the heart, not by reason. —Blaise Paschal 

Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

—Matthew 5:8

Blessing For A Soft Heart

Blessed are you who see it all now—the beautiful, terrible truth that our world, our lives, seem irreparably broken. And you can't unsee it. The unruly problems, the person who wonders if any of this is worth it, all the loneliness and despair and fear.

Blessed are you who glimpse reality and don't turn away. This kind of seeing comes at a steep cost. And it is a cost that you may not have paid intentionally. But here you are, seeing things clearly.

Blessed are you who have worked hard to keep your heart soft. You who live with courage, fixing what is in your reach, praying about what is not, and loving still—despite difference, despite despair, despite all the reasons to shut it down.

May you experience deeper capacity and glimpses of hope as you continue to see the world as it is: terrible, beautiful, fragile, enduring, and most of all good.

—Kate Bowler

Jarrod Morris - compares our current political climate and upcoming presidential election to the story of Jonah. We get to see how we are supposed to act by knowing God‘s character and not through Jonah’s actions.

George wrapped up our series of ‘When in Romans’ teaching from chapter 15. For Paul, his entire imagination has been reshaped by Christ. So, he reinterprets everything thru Jesus naming some of what being Christian looks like. 

SLIDES GEORGE READ IN OUR GATHERING

 Guiding Thoughts for this Election Season

To divide the body of Christ over politics is a grievous sin.

The bottom line for political parties is keeping power. 

The bottom line for a Christian is love.

If your political passion makes it hard for you to love your neighbor as yourself,  

you may need to turn it down a notch. 

Vote your conscience and conviction while accepting that other Christians will do the same and will vote differently than you.

It's more important that your soul be filled with love than for your political team to win.

from Brian Zahnd’s Christian Voter Guide

George explores some passages in Romans 13 about governing authorities being established by God and why that might create challenges for us. God may grant and establish authority but that doesn't mean he approves of how it's being used.

SLIDES GEORGE READ IN OUR GATHERING

No good comes to the cause of the gospel is we are regarded as crazy dissidents who won’t co-cooperate with the most basic of social mechanisms. They are indeed a revolutionary community, but if they go for the normal type of violent revolution they will just be playing the empire back at its own game. They will almost certainly lose, and, much worse, the gospel itself will lose with them.

—N.T. Wright, Romans For Everyone

We need to relativize all authority, subjecting it to the God of Jesus the Messiah, and by subjecting all law to the law of love. There is another law that is above all law. According to this law, the only thing that we most profoundly owe to one another is love. All laws are judged by this law of love. If love is the fulfilling of the law, then any laws that call us to anything short of love, are judged by the law of love as null and void. 

—Keesmaat/Walsh, Romans Disarmed: Targum of Romans 13

Relationships move at the speed of trust: social change moves at the speed of relationships.

—Rev. Jennifer Bailey

George explored Paul's claim that the power that raised Christ lives in us too (Romans 8:11) . How can we take seriously the idea that this actual presence, this gift of God's life, is with us right now? Perhaps through the sacred and holy act of breathing.

SLIDE GEORGE READ IN OUR GATHERING

If whatever God has made and loves is holy, then life is holy in itself, and to live life with love and joy means sanctifying it. The experience of God deepens the experiences of life. We sense the exhilaration of existence, the unfathomable intensification of life, and the will to live. Life in the spirit is not a religious and moral restriction of life and its enfeebling reduction. It is a new delight in living in the joy of God. 

—Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life

When we individualize sin and weaponize it with shame, we forget that the heart of sin is a breakdown in relationship—with God, with each other, with creation.

Just as the failure of one meant the failure of all, so now the life of one means we can all make something of our lives. (Romans 5:12-19).

Talking about sin in a cosmic frame locates our human struggles in a bigger cosmic story, inviting us to take responsibility and live this extraordinary, sacred, holy miracle of our existence.

Jesus didn’t come to solve a problem;  he came to reveal the true nature of God as Love. 

George explores Romans 5 and being justified by faith, which means trusting more and more deeply in God’s grace, generosity, and love given to us before the creation of the world. Paul called this being “In Christ!”

This grounds Christianity in a restorative love and freedom from the very beginning; it creates a very coherent and utterly attractive religion, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, and healing instead of mere sacrificial atonement.

Sarah Huffman - A revelation is the act of God communicating truth and knowledge to a person or people to show us something we did not know or see before. This is a gift from God, not something we do.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Romans 8:14-17).