love – Page 2 – St. Croix Church

Love Across the Veil

January 26, 2025

Wendy VanderWal Martin offers a beautiful contribution to our new teaching theme by exploring the possibility that those who have come before us and those who have ‘loved us in the flesh’ are still present to us beyond death and can be significant portals of Love. She turns to the great cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews 12 to help us imagine this and shares her own experiences of this kind of presence in her life. Wendy invites us all to be open to the idea that we are truly never alone.

Love in the Wilderness

January 19, 2025

As we start to move into our new teaching theme of “The Path of Love: A Way in the Wilderness,” Rachael reviews what inspired it and brings forward Walter’s contributions about the vulnerability of love from before the theme even began! Then she explores the idea that our human experience of the path of love is always a way in the wilderness, and that the conditions that make love hard and vulnerable are exactly what cause its most beautiful expressions to emerge.

The Path of Love: A Way in the Wilderness

January 5, 2025

This Sunday, Jess Williams introduced our new teaching theme, ‘The Path of Love: A Way in the Wilderness’ and invited us to enter the year holding the question, “is this the path of love?” as a guide through the times ahead. She explains how the leadership collective arrived at this theme, and shares some of the passages, poetry, and community insights that led them here.

Huge Problems, Vulnerable Love

December 22, 2024

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, with the theme of Love, Walter emphasizes how strange it is that Vulnerable Love is God’s response to all the big problems in the world and the path that God invites us to follow.

Love & Lament

November 10, 2024

At Second Breakfast this week, Jess & Janell reflected on themes of Love & Lament, particularly in response to the the recent US election and the way it will impact our community and world. A time of vulnerable sharing opened up at the end of the service as we grappled with our grief and our desire to “take love seriously” in the days and months ahead.

The World Has Always Been a Mess

July 28, 2024

In this Sunday’s homily, Walter suggests the odd encouragement that it has always been in the context of a very messed up world that we find our resilience with courage and love.

The Spirit of Pride & The Resilience of The Suffering

June 16, 2024

Digging into our new teaching theme “The Roots of Resilience” Jess Williams reflects on the suffering we face throughout our lives, and what helps sustain us through it. She connects this to the history of Pride and the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, particularly in the church, and underlines why it’s so important for faith communities to listen deeply to, to learn from, to love, and to stand beside all who have been wronged by the church, whether that’s been based on race, religion, sexuality, or anything else.

Return To That Place

April 28, 2024

Renate shares with us the beauty and mysticality of abiding in God and God in us as we love one another.

Give Up Like Jesus (And Do It Together)

February 18, 2024

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

Lessons in Love

January 28, 2024

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.