Crises drive us from our comfort to the edge of vital choice, children speak the words we’ve hidden, simple words we’ve failed to voice.
Durham Street Methodist ChristChurch New Zealand (Aotearoa) January 20, 2019 service led by Rev. Bill Wallace featuring some of his hymns. Our theme today is Christian Theology and global warming.
They’re carted off like cattle, yet we’d refuse a bed to those who flee from carnage now drowned, or lost or dead?
I heard a contemporary hymn on Sunday morning during the Eucharist and fell in love with the melody. It was the “Untitled Hymn
Idyllic beaches break the waves as bathers line the shore This view of peace is now disturbed: an aftermath of war.
If we claim to love our neighbour while the hungry queue for food, are we prey to self deception? Is perception quite so crude?
From the Celebrating Mystery collection
THEME Dreams and Harsh Reality THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION For the rich poverty is obscene. For the poor wealth is obscene. For God both are obscene.
From the Celebrating Mystery collection
1. The earth may be our mother but we can be her mid¬wife or her funeral director. 2. Nature is a web of interdependency not a series of separate hierarchical layers.
Hopeless to help in this violence, this crisis, here in the focus of bloodshed and fear, common humanity binds us together, love at the centre, not hatred's veneer.
From the Boundless Life Collection
Who claims to own this piece of land? Who holds its title deeds? Who thinks it is their private space To meet their selfish needs?
From the Boundless Life collection
Spirit’s golden fire, God’s life-force in our depth, * Fan within our hearts Your just and caring warmth.
Who is our neighbor? That's the question: Who is this person we're to love? The one across the street? Or next door? Or in the apartment up above?
Gladly we address our burdens Through the mystery of prayer, Lovingly support each other In the privilege of care.
From the Boundless Life collection
When the picture haunts my mind Of a starving child who dies, When my silence is disturbed By the mother’s plaintive cries How dear God shall I respond To the tears that flood my eyes?
A sacred community, if it is to be an authentic representation of the life and teachings of Jesus for today, needs to express its concerned opposition in both words, worship and actions, to injustice, violence and corruption – just as Jesus did. There is truth in the statement that “Jesus confronts more than he comforts.” When sacred communities look to the needs of its members in preference to the needs of non- members something is not quite right. The church is one of those organisations which exists for people who do not belong to it. As Jesus was a man for others, so the church is to be there for others.
From the Boundless Life collection
Aid will never save the world Without changes in our lives. Systems which embrace us all Foster wealth’s destructive drives.
From the Boundless Life collection
My desire for you, my friend, Is the same as for myself To be freed from gross desire For more things or for more wealth Through embracing sharing ways That can nurture inner health.
Welcome! One thing is for certain. We are all welcome. This is the Jesus way. He called people to him; he asked people to come to him; he welcomed them; he got cranky with his disciples when they tried to prevent anyone, anyone at all coming to him. He ate with outcasts, those despised; he befriended tax collectors, those regarded as thieves; he encouraged children, usually ignored in adult community, to sit on his knees; he had meals with the elite and the riffraff; he conversed publicly with women although that was taboo; unlike the religious leaders of his day, he sought the company of all kinds and types of people, to affirm them, to challenge them, to call them to an abundant way of life. So we are all welcome. This is the Jesus way.
Words: David MacGregor © 2007 Willow Publishing
As the old year passes we look back, reflect: times of joy and promise, times we’d best forget.
1. With open hearts we come this Anzac Day To pay respect, to ponder and to pray; We would reflect upon the pers’nal cost Paid by those grieving and by all “the Lost.”
Fourteen artists have joined Bread for the World Institute and Women of Faith for the1,000 Days Movement to educate communities and advocate for policy change in the United States to end hunger at home and abroad and give every child the chance to thrive.