Sunday, December 25, 2016

Sunday Supplication - The Savior of the World

Eternal Father, you gave your incarnate Son, Jesus, to be our salvation. Place within our hearts, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world.

Thank you for the forgiveness and renewal you have given to us through Christ Jesus.  Help us to extend forgiveness to each other and help us grow into a redemptive and healing community. Help us to have a redemptive and healing impact on the world around us.

Help us, O God, to find ourselves in you. Give us faith that makes us able to commit all things to you.
Give us hearts to love your will and to serve your purposes. Shape and strengthen us to follow Jesus wherever he leads. Whether by life or death, may Christ be exalted in us. Help us to press on to take hold of all you have in mind for our lives.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Friday, December 23, 2016

Friday Favorites - Christmas at Valley

Looking forward to worshiping with friends and family at Valley this year. You're invited! Take your pick of either Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning. We'll be doing the same one-hour service both times. Merry Christmas!




Thursday, December 22, 2016

Thursday Thinking - Healing and Social Good

Thanks to my wife, Cheri, for sharing the link to this thought-provoking and helpful interview. Let me encourage you to, as you watch it, consider how your faith and your commitment to a church community could both comfort and stretch you.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_can_a_divided_america_heal?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2016-11-12&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_image

How can the US recover after the negative, partisan presidential election of 2016? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the morals that form the basis of our political choices. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, he describes the patterns of thinking and historical causes that have led to such sharp divisions in America — and provides a vision for how the country might move forward. CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE ABOVE

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Wednesday Words - O Emmanuel


O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

"O Emmanuel" by Malcolm Guite, from Sounding the Seasons, © Copyright 2012.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Tuesday Tome - Dickens

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of the most popular stories of the Christmas Season. Movies, plays, musicals, animations, even Muppets--this story has probably been told and retold in more ways that just about anything besides the Bible. And just as the Bible, it is one of the most purchased and least read books in the world. Dickens' A Christmas Carol, though a well-known story, has not been read as a book as often and as widely as it deserves to be. That's too bad because it is a truly beautifully written novella, and no retelling I've seen is as rich and interesting as the original.

If you've never read the book before, let me encourage you to get a copy and make it one of the special things you do this Christmas season. It won't take you long to read, because it's only just over a hundred pages. You can download it to your Kindle or Nook for free, and you can buy paper and ink copy for less than $10.

My recommendation would be that you choose the good old-fashioned book option. Read it in the evening by lamplight in a comfy chair when the house is nice and quiet. Being near a fireplace and having a cup of hot tea close at hand are also recommended for best results.

You will find this classic story to be well worth your time, and you will discover there is much more to this old story than you had imagined.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Sunday Supplication - Your Presence with Us

Heavenly Father, make us aware of your presence in our lives and purify our hearts and minds. We pray that we would find our identity and our home in your Son Jesus Christ as we await the Day of his appearing. Sustain us and shape us by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Thank you for your grace and mercy. Lead us away from temptation.  Deliver us from evil.  Forgive us our sins. And give us the grace and courage to forgive others just as we you have forgiven us.

Thank you, O God, for your promise to be with your people. Give us an awareness of your presence with us today. Grant us the strength and the faith we need to face the challenges and circumstances of our lives. When we are frightened, guard our hearts and minds with the peace of Christ Jesus. Protect us from discouragement, and encourage us, by your Holy Spirit, through your Word, your people, your promises, and all that is beautiful and true. 

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Thursday Thinking - Perspective and Perception

http://www.ted.com/talks/julia_galef_why_you_think_you_re_right_even_if_you_re_wrong?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread
TEDxPSU February 2016 - Julia Galef 

Perspective is everything, especially when it comes to examining your beliefs. Are you a soldier, prone to defending your viewpoint at all costs — or a scout, spurred by curiosity? Julia Galef examines the motivations behind these two mindsets and how they shape the way we interpret information, interweaved with a compelling history lesson from 19th-century France. When your steadfast opinions are tested, Galef asks: "What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Wednesday Words - Mary's Poem

When she heard infinity
whispered in her ear, did the flashing
scissors in her fingers fall
to the wooden floor and the spool unravel,
the spider's sly cradle
tremble with love? Imagine

How the dry fields leaned
toward the news and she heard, for a moment,
the households of crickets –
When she answered, all things shifted, the moon
in its river of milk.

And when she wanted to pluck
her heart from her breast, did she remember
a commotion of wings, or the stirring
of dust?


"Mary's Poem" by Kathleen Wakefield from Notations on the Visible World,
© Copyright 2000 by Kathleen Wakefield.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Tuesday Tome - A Lifelong Love

https://smile.amazon.com/Lifelong-Love-Intimacy-Friendship-Marriage/dp/1434708624/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481563606&sr=1-1&keywords=a+lifelong+love
I'm reading this book and watching a companion video series in preparation for a marriage enrichment reading and discussion group I will be starting in January. If you are interested in participating or if you have questions/suggestions, please contact me.

A Lifelong Love: How to Have Lasting Intimacy, Friendship, and Purpose in Your Marriage
by Gary Thomas

From the publisher...
Gary Thomas believes couples often settle for too little when it comes to marriage. We fail to understand how deeply God cares about our spouse. We diminish our need to not only understand what biblical love really is, but also to become a people who excel at it. We let ourselves drift apart instead of making the daily choices to grow closer together.

Whether your marriage needs a complete makeover, a touch up, or just a new purpose, A Lifelong Love promises to set your relationship on an entirely new dimension. You will never look at worship or your spouse in the same way again. You will understand how living for that day will so radically transform the decisions you make this day. And Gary will guide you through the power shifts and seasonal mine fields that blow up so many marriages so that you can grow in your love instead of in your disappointment.

Thirty years of study and two decades of working with couples has led Gary Thomas to his most significant book yet on the relationship between husband and wife. Find out for yourself what all the fuss is about—and why A Lifelong Love is sure to challenge the way the church talks about marriage.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Sunday Supplication - Christ the King

O Lord, move in our hearts with your great might. Work in our lives with your power. Through your boundless grace and mercy, deliver us from the sins that entangle and destroy us.

Thank you for the forgiveness and renewal you have given to us through Christ Jesus.  Help us as we extend that same forgiveness to others who have sinned against us. Help us to be a community of grace. Make us a church that has a redemptive and healing impact on the world around us.

Thank you, O God, for the forgiveness and life we have through Jesus. You have promised that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. May all who seek you find you, O God. Help us to recognize Christ as King. Help us to make room for his saving and shaping work in our lives.

It is in his Name that we pray all these things. Amen.

Friday, December 09, 2016

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Intentional Christmas Giving


A Guide to Intentional Christmas Giving
Some nice tips and insights including "Want, Need, Wear, Read"

Want, Need, Wear, Read: Compassion Style
How the four gift challenge might inform our giving to those in need.

Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Wednesday Words - Made Flesh

After the bright beam of hot annunciation
Fused heaven with dark earth
His searing sharply-focused light
Went out for a while
Eclipsed in amniotic gloom:
His cool immensity of splendor
His universal grace
Small-folded in a warm dim
Female space—
The Word stern-sentenced to be nine months dumb—
Infinity walled in a womb
Until the next enormity—the Mighty,
After submission to a woman’s pains
Helpless on a barn-bare floor
First-tasting bitter earth.

Now, I in him surrender
To the crush and cry of birth.
Because eternity
Was closeted in time
He is my open door
To forever.
From his imprisonment my freedoms grow,
Find wings.
Part of his body, I transcend this flesh.
From his sweet silence my mouth sings.
Out of his dark I glow.
My life, as his,
Slips through death’s mesh,
Time’s bars,
Joins hands with heaven,
Speaks with stars.

“Made Flesh” by Luci Shaw, from A Widening Light: Poems of Incarnation, Regent College Publishing, © 1984.

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

Tuesday Tome - Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting

Thought I'd read this to brush up on some parenting skills and gain some new insights. Kids are a blessing from the Lord. The better we do with our kids the better for our world.

This will be the selection for my next book club at Valley. I'll be starting a Monday night reading and discussion group for parents and grandparents with children between the ages of 3 and 13.

Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting
by Noël Janis-Norton

Publisher's description...
Tired of nagging, pleading, negotiating, or yelling just to get your kids to do the simple things you ask? You don’t need to be a Tiger Mom or a Helicopter Parent. There is a better way.

Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting brings the joy back into family life and helps parents to raise confident, responsible adults.

Based on her forty-plus years of experience, behavioral specialist Noël Janis-Norton outlines a clear, step-by-step plan that will help any parent raise a child who is cooperative and considerate, confident and self-reliant. Transform your family life with these five strategies: Descriptive Praise, Preparing for Success, Reflective Listening, Never Ask Twice and Rewards and Consequences. You’ll begin to see results almost immediately:

• Kids start cooperating the first time you ask
• Mornings, bedtimes, mealtimes and homework all become easier
• Even very resistant kids start saying” yes” instead of “no”

Full of examples and stories from real parents, this book offers the complete toolkit for achieving peaceful, productive parenting. Parents who have read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk or Positive Parenting will appreciate Noël’s battle-tested methods and easy-to-follow strategies.

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Sunday Supplication - Welcoming Our Redeemer

Merciful God, we thank you every voice you’ve sent into our world to preach repentance and proclaim the way of salvation. Give us contrite hearts and help us to turn away from sin. And give us open and receptive hearts that joyfully welcome the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

Help us in this Christmas season to honor Jesus in thought, word, and deed.  Help us to follow him and to walk in the light as he is in the light.  We confess our sins, trusting that you are faithful and just to forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Thank you for the forgiveness and renewal you have given to us through Christ Jesus.  Make us able and ready to graciously forgive those who have sinned against us.

Restore and renew us today, O God. And make our lives a testimony of your power to restore and renew us. Help us to live by faith. And make our lives shining demonstrations of your promise to save and restore.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Friday, December 02, 2016

Friday Favorites - Gwen Ifill

For many years, Gwen Ifill has been a favorite journalist of mine. I was so saddened when she died last month. I will miss the strong, positive, and kind presence she was on PBS and NPR. 

I just came across a wonderful tribute to Ifill written by her friend and colleague David Brooks. It reminded me of the reasons I appreciated her so much, and gave insights into why she will be so missed greatly.


From "The Life and Example of Gwen Ifill" by David Brooks...
Gwen worked in a tough business, and being an African-American woman in that business brought its own hardships and scars, but Gwen’s smile did not hold back. Her whole personality was the opposite of reticent, and timidity was a stranger to her. When the Ifill incandescence came at you, you were getting human connection full-bore.
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS WONDERFUL TRIBUTE

Thursday, December 01, 2016

Thursday Thinking - Oldest Christmas Sermon

This may be the oldest Christmas sermon ever preached. It's from St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407, Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος), Archbishop of Constantinople, who was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking.


St. John Chrysostom’s Christmas Homily (386AD)

BEHOLD a new and wondrous mystery. My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, He had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things yielded in obedience to God. This day He Who is, is Born; and He Who is, becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassability, remaining unchanged.

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Since this heavenly birth cannot be described, neither does His coming amongst us in these days permit of too curious scrutiny. Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech. For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works.

What shall I say to you; what shall I tell you? I behold a Mother who has brought forth; I see a Child come to this light by birth. The manner of His conception I cannot comprehend.

Nature here rested, while the Will of God labored. O ineffable grace! The Only Begotten, Who is before all ages, Who cannot be touched or be perceived, Who is simple, without body, has now put on my body, that is visible and liable to corruption. For what reason? That coming amongst us he may teach us, and teaching, lead us by the hand to the things that men cannot see. For since men believe that the eyes are more trustworthy than the ears, they doubt of that which they do not see, and so He has deigned to show Himself in bodily presence, that He may remove all doubt.

Christ, finding the holy body and soul of the Virgin, builds for Himself a living temple, and as He had willed, formed there a man from the Virgin; and, putting Him on, this day came forth; unashamed of the lowliness of our nature’. For it was to Him no lowering to put on what He Himself had made. Let that handiwork be forever glorified, which became the cloak of its own Creator. For as in the first creation of flesh, man could not be made before the clay had come into His hand, so neither could this corruptible body be glorified, until it had first become the garment of its Maker.

What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.

For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit, that He may save me.

Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused, and spreads on every side, a heavenly way of life has been ‘in planted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and men now hold speech with angels.

Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle. He became Flesh. He did not become God. He was God. Wherefore He became flesh, so that He Whom heaven did not contain, a manger would this day receive. He was placed in a manger, so that He, by whom all things arc nourished, may receive an infant’s food from His Virgin Mother. So, the Father of all ages, as an infant at the breast, nestles in the virginal arms, that the Magi may more easily see Him. Since this day the Magi too have come, and made a beginning of withstanding tyranny; and the heavens give glory, as the Lord is revealed by a star.

To Him, then, Who out of confusion has wrought a clear path, to Christ, to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost, we offer all praise, now and for ever. Amen.