Grace to you, and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Kirk Jones, a professor from Andover Newton, published a book called Rest in the Storm, which I read as part of a wonderful class called “The Jazz of Preaching.”  While our personal and sometimes academic connection did sometimes center on music, I continue to read Kirk’s words because of “rest.”  In thinking of our expectations for summer recreation and relaxation, I wonder where we find our rest and also whether we are called to rest or to work?  If to the former, how are we best to find comfort and rest; if the latter, how is our work to be fruitful without being draining.  Some possible answers to these questions may be found in our readings for this week.  I look forward to exploring these ideas with you as we grow in faith.

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you, and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Gearing up for our celebration of Pride today, I am also writing with thoughts of welcome in mind.  It is not always easy to know how we make room for others, whether in our own family, in our community, or in the wider world.  Still, we are invited–and I would even say challenged to love–widely and well.  That is our single law.  So, we will look this weekend at what it means to love.  Sound simple?  Jesus knew how difficult this can sometime be, and Jesus’ first followers sometimes struggled with how to live out this law.  We are not alone, which is the message we try to share with others as we live out our love.  Let’s keep figuring this out together.  

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you, and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  I look forward to catching up with many of you at our Second Saturday Breakfast today at 9:00!   I do hope that many of us will gather together in Fisher Hall.  I will have made coffee to share, as well as my usual yoghurt mix.  Bring yourselves and anything you’d like to share to eat.  Fellowship is the main event! 

Maybe that could be the title of this weekend’s sermon, as well, as the passage from Corinthians urges us to find unity.  In all, we focus this week on what uplifts and strengthens, as opposed to those things that degrade, deride or weaken.  It is for joy and mutual support that we gather as people of faith in what remains unseen, whether we gather for worship or for fellowship.  Our God walks with us and we respond in praise. 

Blessings and peace, Lisa

In the midst of a very beautiful weekend, our Sunday worship will be focusing on the even more beautiful aspects of the pinnacle of God’s creation—us. We will explore the first half of one of the Davidic Psalms, 139 and appreciate what treasures each of us is in the eyes of our Creator. We are, indeed, “fearfully and wonderfully made”.

Blessings and peace, Hunt

Our service will be a celebration of Trinity Sunday as well as a grateful commemoration of those who give their lives to make a better world for Memorial weekend.  Music will come from our hymnal as well as the American Folk tradition.  We have much to be thankful for. 

Blessings and peace, Rev. Dr. Kate Winters

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday (Wear RED!!), when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, first given to the disciples and shared with all of us, eternally.  What this moment looked like then is extraordinary and what this presence means today can also be extraordinary.  What are the gifts of the Spirit and how do we know them?  We know them by their fruit, and we learn from Jesus and later from Paul how the Spirit is manifest most apparently.  This bears our close regard, and in our joyful singing and prayerful meditation tomorrow we will strengthen each other for our walk in the Spirit together. 

Blessings and peace, Lisa