Momologian

But that’s not fair!!! Humanity often nurtures a sense of us vs. them, and sometimes even a culture of fairness vs. unfairness when it comes to Love and compassion. God’s grace can seem unfair - and that’s the best thing about it!

So often Christians neglect their bodies - either shaming themselves or forgetting they have them altogether. But what if we were to look to the psalmists for ways to worship God with our whole selves - spiritual and physical - in a way that delights in our body's abilities and limitations as reflections of Grace in the world?

It sure has been a hot minute since we’ve been here! So what have we been up to this whole time?

Radical hospitality was an expectation in Biblical times. Generous welcome and care for the stranger often was the difference between life and death. Just because we don’t live in the desert doesn’t mean we don’t need to give or receive the same kind of care.

Today’s scripture gives us a lesson on what it means to be unafraid in the face of the unknown.

The Creation account is more than it seems.

It’s Pentecost, baby!

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi - Or, in other words, y’all: If we talk the talk, we gotta walk the walk and MEAN IT

A little reflection on this Sunday morning. How does this moment in Acts speak to the church today?

Peter’s faith in Jesus is the foundation of the church. A strong enough foundation that here we are, over 2000 years later, still standing upon it. Our foundation is our faith in Christ and who we say he is. Or is it?

It’s time to leave the gatekeeping behind, friends. The truth is, we (Mainline Protestants and for SURE New England Methodists) as a community are declining not because people have fallen out of love with God but because people have fallen out of love with CHURCH.

A special message on Native American Ministries Sunday. Hear guest preacher Mr. Todd Warfield, member of the Abenaki tribe, on Acts and reorienting ourselves daily.

It’s still Eastertide, friends! 1 Peter 1:3-9 speaks not just to the early church but to us in our time as well.

No matter what the world tells us, the resurrection of Christ matters. So, why Easter? And why should it matter to us today?

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem stirred things up and set in motion the events we now observe as Holy Week. But why was the city on edge and what was it about Jesus that made everyone so nervous?

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” Jesus is still calling us out into the world, still bringing us opportunities to reconnect with the life giving Spirit of God…even when we feel like we are too far gone to be reached

The Samaritan Woman at the Well. Her name is Photini - which in Greek means LIGHT. Appropriate because she truly is a light for many who feel unseen or unheard.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus with a question, and Jesus answers him in a way totally different from what Nicodemus was anticipating – totally unexpected. This is week two in Lent, and we are working our way toward Easter and Resurrection in an attempt to understand how we have an inside/out kind of faith.

Welcome to Lent, and the wilderness - what will your first step into the season look like?

What is Jesus REALLY saying in these passages about divorce, unaliving folks, and sweating oaths? Time to dig deep, friends and hear this in a different way.

Jesus calls us to be salty and get lit. I said what I said.

Imagine hearing for the first time that you are blessed when all you have ever been told is the opposite. Today’s reading is a blessing and a challenge to enter into a deepening of relationships with one another, with our communities, with the needy, and with God.

And what’s that thing, you ask? Come (and follow) and find out!

When reality defies all expectations, what are we to do? Just dive right in. Embrace it just as we are embraced, of course!

It’s Epiphany and we are all asking ourselves what it is we are searching for this year. Like the Magi know, the path to discovering what we are seeking is often complicated and really freaking hard at times. And yet! There is hope…

this week in Advent we find ourselves alongside Joseph as we journey toward love. His journey toward love is a complicated, messy path involving the work of self love, acceptance and grace.

When Mary sings her song of praise, it is a song of JOY in the face of Empire. It’s also a song of invitation to us all.

This second week of Advent asks us to embark on a journey toward Peace. What wisdom can we find in the words of the prophet Isaiah in our time, when peace seems so hard to come by?

What if we treated thanksgiving as something in action and not like something that just sits independent of anything else around it?

Ruth teaches us that we are so much more than our past or our present when we allow our hearts and minds to be open to the workings of God and the Spirit.

Join us for this time of celebrating and remembering the saints of the church and the saints of our community on this All Saints Sunday.

Our final installment of our Holy Ghost Stories series takes us into a secluded room where suddenly all you-know-what breaks loose!

For the second installment of our Holy Ghost Stories series. Join us as we hear about The Man on the Water and ask ourselves who is the voice calling to *us* on the sea.

Spooky season is here, and we New Englanders do love our autumn celebrations! Did you know that our scriptures are filled with ghost stories? Holy Ghost stories, of course!

For everyone born. A place at the table. Hear a message on bread, bodies, church, and how we are all connected on this World Communion Sunday.

In this final installment of our series on Holy Resistance, we hear about the disciples called before the Sadducees in Acts. We, the church, are called to be like the disciples John and Peter. To speak loudly about the injustices of the world today, and to not stop speaking even (especially?) when it makes those in power nervous.

Here we are in the third week of our series on "Stories of Holy Resistance." Which is why Vashti’s story is one that needs to be told, and how brave she was to stand up to a system of power that was seeking to remove her value as a human being.

Shiphrah and Puah and their brave yet simple moment of resistance - their refusal to participate in something they new was wrong - put into motion something so much bigger that would ultimately result in the liberation of a whole people.

Week 1 of stories of holy resistance in our texts. The Syrophoenician woman wouldn’t take no for an answer. Even from Jesus.

The rich, young ruler was told to deal with his stuff. What sort of stuff are we carrying around and why do we - as Jesus-followers - really need to sort it out?

There is indeed a lot in this message to the disciples that seems to be counter-intuitive to the Jesus way. But what if it’s really a message encouraging us to not be afraid of the fire but embrace it?

Yes, God’s got our back BUT it’s is not enough to simply know it or tell people that. We have to live it. In everything we do.

Christ is all and in all. That means you, too! When the world is desperate for healing, the work of making things whole needs to start with our own selves.

Sometimes we forget that being church means not just claiming the title “Christian,” but also co tiny if to grow our faith by asking questions and seeking answers. Growing in faith and practice means inspecting and questioning how our sacred texts allow us to encounter and discern God’s presence in our practices AS a church, AS a people called Christian.

Sometimes the Spirit moves in the most unlikely of places - and leads us to have serious conversations about faith and belief. When is the last time any of us took a moment to sit with the Spirit and think about the question, “Who is Christ to me?”

These letters of Paul - or maybe-Paul - have provided so much foundation for our modern church’s practices and beliefs. For better or for worse, y’all. So let’s dig into Paul’s letter to Colossians, because And like anything built on a foundation, it’s good to inspect what is holding us up. What *is* providing the connection that grounds us, both as a modern church and as a people inheriting an ancient church.

What does it mean to have “freedom in Christ” when lately it feels like freedom is not available to all? What do we need to do to live more fully into that freedom and inspire others to do the same?

This has been a particularly hard week, and it’s hard to preach freedom in Christ when so many have less freedom today than just a week ago. Where is the wisdom and grace in today’s text from Galatians for us today?

Paul’s letter to the Galatian church expresses a special family relationship in Christ, one we as a church community live into in our ministry and mission with the homeless at Bristol Lodge

It’s Trinity Sunday and some of you may be wondering, “well, what the heck is that?” Well. It’s weird, and it’s funky, and it’s enormous, and it’s beautiful in all its complexity.