Preeminent German hymn writer Philipp Nicolai was a Lutheran pastor whose small town, Unna, was devastated by the plague during the winter of 1597-8 with over 1300 deaths.  He officiated at many funerals, as many as 30 a day.

Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations Secretary-General, was awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize.  After his death, many were surprised at the content of Markings, a kind of personal diary and notebook now recognized as a  twentieth century classic of Christian spirituality.

Dina Datsko de Sánchez wrote this new poem for the re-imagined Homecoming Sunday at First Congregational Church, Long Beach.

It is yet another Monday of what will most likely be a difficult week. There are many issues of concern, much to be worried about with both the pandemic and politics. In recent days, however, I’ve found myself less anxious than in the past, as I’ve leaned on these words from the late Marcus Borg’s final book, “Convictions”

Annually, for several years, I visited the monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a beautiful compound north of downtown Tucson. I was amazed at the physical, mental, and spiritual liveliness of these mostly older women, and the level of their engagement with the world despite their mostly cloistered way of life.

    “Leaning In: A Prayer of Intention” is a sung prayer of intercession that aims to break down the distinction between the typical “us” and “them:” of such prayers. It also shifts away from petition (asking …

  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”  (St Paul, Romans 8: 26) I …

The lectionary-based TEENTEXT HIGH SCHOOL resource helps older youth connect the text on the page with events in their daily lives. These resources guide students into the text, and through a series of open-ended, text-related questions, they begin to see the Bible as a vital, dynamic relevant resource–one that can inform them throughout their lives. These resources enable any interested and committed adult to facilitate the discussions, since the leaders aren’t expected to have THE answer, or to be Biblical scholars or theologians. They simply need to be good listeners and open to their own spiritual growth. This process also allows the students to share leadership.

    Son. Father. Uncle. Friend. Human being. Child of God. What blindness could keep anyone from seeing the sacred life in this man? Bystanders saw it. And cried out that his precious life be spared. Only …

  Here are some of our resources about racism and the global protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death while being restrained by police in Minneapolis on May 25. We hope that you find them helpful. …

God,

Our Source and Ground of Being, In you we live, move, and exist.

For many of us, social distancing, has created a wall between us and separated us from our lives. Bumping up against this wall over and over again, our noses can almost smell the fear filled mortar which oozes from the newly laid brickwork.

  Click below for Video of Sermon     Prelude Singing Bell and Call to Worship: L: Our lives feel all disjointed as though they were a valley of dry bones. P: But the Spirit of God …

According to the Torah, on the Sabbath you can pick up an apple that naturally falls from a tree onto the ground, but you can’t pick it from the tree.  Mindful Christian meditative prayer practice is very similar.  In it, we take time to see things as they are, without interfering with them or trying to fix or change them.

An assembly of words that have the power of a hammer and the tenderness of a hug. A little book that tells a big story of a soul’s journey through religion to the Light.

It is easy to get so caught upin the business and troublesof our own lives,

“At the center of the Christmas story is hope…hope which comes to us in the form of a vulnerable, poor baby. A child, not a king, changes the world. God appears to us as a marginalized, Afro-Semitic, Jewish child from Nazareth in Palestine. A child who grows up to teach us to welcome the stranger. How would our world be different if we loved our neighbors as ourselves?” asks the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church.

Human child of human mother,
see the Christ has come to birth,
demonstrating now in living
every person’s human worth.