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Rest, Rule, Rhythms (Summer 2024)Throughout the summer, we will refresh on a few key ideas in the spiritual life: Rest, Rule, Rhythm. As we work through, we will have in mind our own lives and how we are designing and ordering our lives in ways that help us to connect with God and grow in Christ-likeness by the Spirit.
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"It Seemed Good..." (Acts 15) - September 8, 2024
"Discernment is not absolute correctness—"getting it right"; it's not about just doing what bible says--though the Bible is part of discussion. The apostles don't seem to be afraid of “getting it wrong." They ultimately settle on doing what seemed good to them and to the Holy Spirit."
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"Subversive Rest" (Exodus 5:1-9) - September 1, 2024
" The context of Sabbath Rest is resistance against systems that use other people’s labor for own profit and make up stories that reinforce own power. True rest not a luxury for those who have earned it or finished all their work. It is a necessary practice to sustain our humanness and our faithfulness. And it is a direct means of resisting and subverting systems and stories of profit and power that use and eventually dehumanize God’s image-bearing children."
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"Rhythms: Gathering Together" (Hebrews 10:19-25) - August 25, 2024
"There is nothing wrong with old garment/wineskin; I love old shirts and aged wine. But as Divinity and humanity mix in Jesus, as Christ moves among human societies, a reaction is happening. Things are breaking down and re-forming, and LIFE is BURSTING. We can’t try to hold new, expanding, bursting LIFE in rigid containers, in familiar categories, in fixed detailed expectations. There has to be space for something new to be created."
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"Rhythms: Gathering Together" (Hebrews 10:19-25) - August 18, 2024
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"Church is not a should. Church is a name for the people who share an awareness that God is near, who cultivate a common hope in a God who has more for us and for this world, who are committed to provoking one another toward love and good deeds."
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"Rhythms: Rhythms of Grace" (Galatians 5:22-26) - August 11, 2024
"Grace is the presence of Christ, growing up in us, and us flourishing in him. Our lives become a trellis for Christ to grow up and flourish in the world."
(There is no video or audio from this Breakfast Church gathering.)
"Rule: Personal & Communal" (Leviticus 23) - July 28, 2024
"Too many churches are propping up institutions and what once was. Too many Christians are just throwing spiritual things against a wall and hoping they stick. Jesus had intention and a plan...AND he was incredibly responsive to the situations and experiences that popped up and leveraging them towards training disciples in his Way."
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"Baptized into Christ" (Romans 6:3-11) & "Practicing New Life" (Colossians 3:12-17) - July 21, 2024
"Baptism…and the Christian Faith as a whole, is about having our lives joined, fused, merged into God’s. About our stories becoming intertwined and entangled with the Story of Creation and Promise and Jesus.
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"Rule: What You Sow" - Galatians 6:1-11 (July 14, 2024)
"This is how communities work: We take responsibility for own well-being, and this enables us to bear others’ burdens when their burdens are too great for them. In community, if others are taking responsibility for their own spiritual lives, they are ready to help you when you are getting crushed by life's burdens."
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"Rule: The Trellis" - John 15:1-11 (July 7, 2024)
"We may have a theoretical political or social freedom. But we are enslaved to corporations, technologies, partisan systems, media conglomerates, etc. that are shaping our bodies, minds, souls to be stuck in desires and systems that are not healthy for our bodies, do not engender deep connection, or enhance our capacity to love. Divine Freedom, on the other hand, is not a freedom from ANY constraints, but the capacity to live a good and beautiful life of faith, hope, and love."
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"Rest: No-Ing" - Exodus 16 and Mark 1:14-19 (June 30, 2024)
"Sabbath Rest and saying "no" frees people to rest--not only from their work, but from the burden of self-centered self-sufficiency."
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"Rest: Breathing Grace" - Hebrews 4:8-11 (June 23, 2024)
"If our lives are relying on our own work, our own survival, our own achievement, our own earning…never Rest
Breathe Grace, let it fill our lungs, nourish each part of our bodies/souls, enter into a Rest that transforms our presence in the world from anxious scrambling to openhearted generosity."
(Because this was a Breakfast Church Sunday, we do not have video recording.)
Breathe Grace, let it fill our lungs, nourish each part of our bodies/souls, enter into a Rest that transforms our presence in the world from anxious scrambling to openhearted generosity."
(Because this was a Breakfast Church Sunday, we do not have video recording.)
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"REst: Settling IN" - Exodus 20:8-11 (June 16, 2024)
"This word in Exodus 20 is temple language and it takes us back to the seventh day of creation at the beginning of Gen. 2. The "Rest" God took was not so much that God stopped doing things, but that he had finished the temple-building process and was now “settling in” to inhabit the creation-temple. Just as you might finish building a house or moving in, and then you get to the work of daily living. This is what Rest is: settling in to participate in what happens when God and humans get together."
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Community LIghthouse Service (June 9, 2024)
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Every summer, we gather with other churches at the Point Place Lighthouse to sing God's praises, share a meal, and celebrate God and the bond of the Spirit that we have through Jesus Christ. This year we gathered with CrossPoint Community Church, Messiah Lutheran Church, Northpoint Church of the Nazarene, and RiverPoint Ministries United Methodist Church.
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"Sabbath" - Mark 2:23-3:6, Rev. Dr. Kathryn Helleman (June 2, 2024)
"And then I remember thinking: 'This is church.' After awhile, Grandpa looked up at the sky and said, "Well, we'd best be getting back now because your grandmother will be home soon from church. So we gathered up the evidence that we'd been there. He dusted me off and said, 'Now, you can't tell you grandmother about this, because if she knew I went to church, she'd make me go to her church. And I just can't do it. Because I can hear God here, as clear as if I were in Eden and he were walking with me in the garden.'"
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