April 21, 2024
Just How Much Do I Want To Be A Christian
Mark continues where he left off in his last talk (on the temptations of Jesus – “Give Up Like Jesus “) after he shares some of his thoughts on how to read the Bible in a way that might make you more interested in being a Christian. Then he draws our attention to why it was important that Jesus started by building community with some fishermen.
April 14, 2024
Intergenerational Connections
At our Second Breakfast potluck, Janell shared about the variety of intergenerational connections she’s had throughout her life, and continues to enjoy today. From growing up in a close knit church community, to moving to St. Stephen, and now working as a piano teacher and fitness coach for older adults, Janell has experienced the value and joy of nurturing relationships across the ages, and helped us all think about this as a way of being rooted together in Love as a community
April 7, 2024
Jesus the Lousy Politican: An Easter Story
Walter uses a story to make the point of how the political methods of Jesus were not at all on the same page as others – and this remains true to this day. The church that follows Jesus has only one approach to politics: to be communities of compassion, generosity and joy.
March 31, 2024
Life out of Death
Our Easter Sunday service wove together music, liturgy, lectionary readings, personal “life out of death” stories from three beloved members of our community – Bill, Lorna, and Moriah – and a homily from Rachael. The recording begins with the three “witnesses” and is followed by Rachael’s invitation to sit with the improbability of the resurrection of Jesus, allowing it to be less of a provable certainty and more of a miraculous mystery – that calls to us and shapes our own lived experience of loss and renewal.
March 24, 2024
From Palms to Passion: The Path of Holy Week & Facing our Grief Together
On Palm Sunday, Jess considers what happens in the space between the Palms of the Triumphal Entry and the Passion of Christ, emphasizing the way Jesus walked toward human suffering and encourages his followers to do the same. Jess invites us to pay attention to the suffering in our own lives, so that we can pay attention to the suffering of others as well.
March 17, 2024
And Yet…The Shadow Side of God
A few months after inviting us to “Bring Our Shadows to Church,” Walter asks us to face the shadow side of God in order to prevent us from “calling evil good” (like genocide or threats of eternal torment) while also avoiding a naively optimistic minimizing of evil. We could choose to lament and wrestle with the mystery of evil that’s present in God’s Creation while trusting in the Presence of God’s co-suffering love.
March 10, 2024
Conversations on Lent
At Second Breakfast this Sunday, we invited Rick, Wilma, and Rosie to reflect on Lent practices they’ve done and are doing. Then we enjoyed sharing our own experiences with each other, as we considered together the value of rituals such as this, and the kind of space it can make in our lives.
March 3, 2024
You Are The Beloved
On the 3rd Sunday of Lent, Jess is drawn to return to the baptism of Jesus and the revelation of our own belovedness. Reflecting on excerpts from Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved, she invites us to consider the people who have revealed our belovedness to us, and encourages us to deepen our experience of living into (or ‘enfleshing’) our belovedness in our everyday lives. Jess demonstrates how letting ourselves be known can be a threshold we step through that allows The Beloved to find us, too.
February 25, 2024
Lumpy Together
On the second Sunday of Lent, Renate Gritter shares some reflections on death and mortality grounded in her recent experience of finding a lump on her neck. She tells the story of what it was like to contemplate going through cancer and even death and invites all of us to consider “giving up” going through struggles with mortality with only our own powers to aid us and tell our friends about the “lumps” in our lives, whatever they may be.
February 18, 2024
Give Up Like Jesus (And Do It Together)
On the first Sunday of Lent, Mark Groleau walks us through the temptations of Jesus and asks us to consider the things Jesus “gave up” and why. He points out that each response Jesus gives “the satan” links to Old Testament Jewish teachings and to what was happening in the cultural landscape of that time. Mark recognizes that we continue to face the same challenges the early church faced. He encourages that following The Way of Jesus still means giving up on power and doing “small things with great love” to care for our neighbours and the world
February 4, 2024
Being Rooted in Love is Economic: Some Experiences with God and Money
Walter shares some of his story around finances and his lifelong passion to try to take biblical ideas of economic justice seriously. At the end, he shared this recording of Becka singing the lullaby he wrote for his kids based on Matthew 6.
January 28, 2024
Lessons in Love
In today’s homily, Jess expands on our theme “Being Rooted in Love Together” as she reflects on some lessons in love she’s picked up from her former self, (90’s evangelical teenage Jess) her current self, the apostle Paul, and everyone else. She suggests that greeting our differences with a loving embrace (instead of trying to convert each other) might be the only way to melt our barriers away.