24
Jan 2022
Groundhog Day You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! You are loved! Are you still reading? Is there a point at which this statement becomes too repetitive? Twice? Five times? Ten times? You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! You are enough! What about now? Is this message too stale when it’s......
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10
Dec 2021
Gospel is a fancy word for truth. In the Christian faith, gospel takes its form in story. We’re familiar with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Some of us may even be familiar with apocryphal (additional) gospels like Thomas. But too often, we fail to recognize the most important gospels: our own stories of truth! The stories in our sacred texts reflect communities of faith seeking to make sense of the life of Jesus. Something about him was true. Somehow, someway, Jesus made God more accessible, more present, and more......
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10
Dec 2021
Don’t get us wrong, Advent reflections, especially the long, thoughtful ones are great. But in these super-busy times, it’s often hard to make space for the attention and presence consistent reflection requires. It’s hard enough to wrangle your kids out the door on a school day. It’s harder still to steal a few moments for 28 consecutive days. Enter the 2021 Sardis Advent Calendar. It’s both virtual and physical. We decided to follow the expectancy of the season through the growth of seeds. A bookmark, printed on seeded paper, as well as......
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10
Dec 2021
I want to brag on our worship development team, as well as our staff for their creative and adaptive thinking in a busy season. Here’s the deal: when Advent begins the same weekend as Thanksgiving, we often get so tied up in “the getting ready” for a season of preparation that we don’t actually prepare. Hanging greens becomes a task rather than an act of worship. This year, we decided to grow with the season. We didn’t put up the Chrismon Tree on November 28th. We decided to let it grow with......
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25
Oct 2021
This past week, the Sardis congregation celebrated Story Sunday. The entire morning was dedicated to making the stories of our faith accessible to our littlest ones. Below is an excerpt from the morning prayer. Each week, we gather together as a church family to offer a community prayer to God. We can tell God what we are thankful for. We can also tell God what’s making us feel nervous, or anxious, or worried. We can tell God how we feel. That means it’s okay to tell God when we are happy or......
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02
Sep 2021
In the year ahead, may we help our children to learn those things necessary to building convictions that are tempered with compassion. And may their goodness rub off on us!...
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02
Aug 2021
The following appeared as my column in our August edition of Signposts. BACK AT IT So…we’re back. Well, it’s not like we were ever away. But we’re back. Back to gathering for worship in person. Back to doing many of the things that are so familiar to us. Back to being Sardis in 3-D. It’s strange though. In March of 2020, we kind of flicked off the light switch, and our world slowed down. And fast! Every routine we could imagine was either altered, eliminated, or paused. As the “switch” flips back......
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27
Jul 2021
Earlier this summer, my dad and I went on a walk. Our conversation (as it often does) turned toward the local church. Dad spent two decades working as a minister in congregational settings, and an additional three and a half decades working for a church-based non-profit. Dad asked me, “What do you think that the local church offers to the world?” We both agreed that the Church’s value is more apparent to seasoned audiences. Redemption, reconciliation of broken relationships, forgiveness, hope, re-birth are all attractive messages for older adults. And in many......
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31
Mar 2021
A New Spin on An Old Tradition For the last five years, Sardis has reframed Maundy Thursday, traditionally a somber service, into an evening of joy. Yes, it was the last supper for friends, but it was also the first Communion. And Communion, a radical welcome to table, is the thing that binds us together, and reminds us of our value. In pre-pandemic times, we would recreate the meal in our meetinghouse. We shared a simple meal of soup and bread, on earthen ware, and read the Gospel accounts of the Passover......
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13
Mar 2021
Zoom fatigue is real. If you spend all day on a screen, it’s not likely that you’ll be enthusiastic about logging into one more meeting for Sunday morning worship. Sabbath is intended to be life-giving, not life-draining. During the season of Lent, we’re focusing on reclaiming life in spaces that aren’t typically life-giving. The pandemic won’t allow us to abandon distanced-worship just yet, but the pandemic doesn’t have to be an impediment to life-giving space. So…we’re reclaiming the Zoom grid as a space for life-giving energy. Congregants have been encouraged to wear......
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