2009 Weekly Metaphors
Each week our worship service revolves around a visual metaphor (seen below). We seek to communicate a message in a language easily understood by our congregation using multiple media including the visual medium. The visual dimension of our service is made possible by four large plasma screens run by a state-of-the-art control system.
Back to current year's metaphors
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Out with the Old ... The Christmas season is rich in traditions: familiar, fun and comfortable. We know we mean when we say what we say. Would someone new attending our worship understand this? Are there times when making changes is no longer optional but obligatory? December 28, 2009 |
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I Love You So December 24, 2009 |
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Through the Eyes of a Child Sunday School Christmas Program December 20, 2009 |
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Caroling, Caroling We hear, in lessons from scripture, how the prophets of Israel foretold that God would visit and redeem the waiting people. Our music celebrates how the good purpose of God is being fulfilled with the coming of the Wild One. December 13, 2009 |
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Let the Wild Rumpus Start! Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is that Wild One we are waiting for. Following in his Way will, indeed, turn the world and everything we know about it upside down: Let the Wild Rumpus Start! December 6, 2009 |
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Watching for the Wild One Today we light the first Advent candle, the candle of Hope. Let us keep awake by it... keep watch by it so that we might be found working toward God's kingdom of love and justice and peace when Christ comes again. November 29, 2009 |
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Rest Stop God in the angels or the angelic comes to us in our exhaustion, frustration, despair. God meets us not only in service, suppers, studies... where there is fire, food, and feeding. God meets us in the silence, and asks of us what we must occassionally ask of ourselves: "What are you doing here?" November 22, 2009 |
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Light My Fire If the creation of God's kingdom is really participatory and God is waiting for our co-operation, then are there signs that we are "fired up " to ensure that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? November 15, 2009 |
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Trust and Oy Vey! This story like others in scripture opens the way for us to both trust in the God who loves us and created us and calls us and cares for us, and complain to the God who is able to receive it all -- not only our praise and thanksgiving, but our fear, our anxiety, our anger, our frustration, our indignation, our righteous rage. November 8, 2009 |
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Passing the Mantle Today we remember the saints of Christ Church and loved ones whose lives we have been privileged to celebrate in this place. We remember those who have been taken up into the whirlwind and how in life they mentored us, walked with us, showed us the way. November 1, 2009 |
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Rethink Commitment We have committed to a journey together with Christ: questioning, serving, growing. You are invited to do more than come along for the ride. Help us see; bring who you are and what you know to the conversations and dreaming that is happening. We are about to head into the wilderness. Not a bad place to be since God is always meeting up with people there. October 25, 2009 |
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Rethink Family We have a lot to resist in a culture that glorifies privacy fences and culdesacs, back porches and cars with tinted windows and the abiliy to shut out and drown out the needs of the world. How do we take care of one another? How far can we go because Jesus challenges us to RETHINK family? October 18, 2009 |
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Rethink Leadership Peter, James, Mary Magdalene, Thomas, the beloved disciple, John, Paul... so many leaders, but when you really check into it, no really convincing heir apparent. Maybe the message is this: Jesus did not choose or train his one special "successor" because he was creating something far less hierarchical where we are all leaders, all successors, all responsible and all chosen. October 11, 2009 |
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Rethink Economy If we want to follow Jesus and witness the coming of God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, then we must begin that great sharing that leads to economic justice in our world. In God's economy, in God's household, there will be no rich because there can be no poor... but for everyone enough and life abundant. October 4, 2009 |
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Rethink Health Care There is no body so broken that God cannot heal it and breathe new life into it, but the heart of things must change. Ezekiel calls out the leaders of Israel for their failuire to care for the weak: "You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured. " In scripture healing is not only for people, but nations and institutions. We are finally seeing the very real possibility of health care reform that would, indeed, be in line with what Jesus said was at the heart of his mission and ministry: to bring good news to the poor. At the heart of a moral vision for health care is the public option. September 27, 2009 |
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Rethink Green We read in Psalm 41:1 "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" - the richness,
the wealth and the beauty of this world is not ours to despoil. September 20, 2009 |
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Rethink Church What if church wasn't just a building but thousands of doors each opening to a different concept or experience of church so that whoever knocks might find a journey of their own... September 13, 2009 |
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Church and Society We give thanks for those who labor in the fields and in the offices and in the home. We remember that Jesus spoke of a kingdom in which all would have enough for what is needed each day. We celebrate 100 year of the Social Creed and United Methodist commitment to advocating for better work conditions, justice and peace, and the dignity of all persons. September 6, 2009 |
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Let there be Light We are called to be light for the world. We are called to take the Christ light into the world's darkest places. And if we get it right, those who see tht light will praise God, the artist of us all. August 30, 2009 |
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Thin Places There are places where the boundary is very thin between this world that we live our life in and the Other that is not separate from it but encompasses it. Paul in Acts says: In God, we live and move and have our being. To experience that truth, it may be that all we need to do is let go of our expectations about what the experience will be like and arrive with a willingness to acknowledge the holy however it breaks through. August 23, 2009 |
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Love Crimes What are you going to do to give them hope? What are we going to do? We can say that we are against violence and discrimination of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trasgender folks, but what are we for? Are we for Christ Church being a place where ALL people are truly valued amd valuable -- where people know they are persons of sacred worth? August 16, 2009 |
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Opening Minds What if the church was not institution but an experiment? Life lived in discerning the will of God -- for the here and now-- what is good and acceptable and perfect. August 9, 2009 |
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Love is All You Need Using sound bytes, quotes, and video clips from the vast collection of Beatles music we told a different kind of love story. August 2, 2009 |
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Wonderful Words Today we open ourselves to the emotional rather than the rational movement of worship in poetry, psalms, and songs. Psalms and Poetry, ancient and modern, they are not so much about what we think, but how we feel. They may include a story, but one we cannot keep at arms length because it gives voice to the feelings, the mood of the moment. July 26, 2009 |
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Big Fish In the movie, Will gets the opportunity to learn -- just in time, what his father is about. And so he enters the story and helps write the what happens next. The real story of the ascension verses is not the what and where but who the disciples become: livers of, and tellers of, the Jesus story. July 19, 2009 |
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Music That Moves Us Remember that song that changed your life? That shaped who you are? That seemed to lift you somewhere you had not been before? Who were you with? What was going on in the world? The Holy is still trying to move us through the music. July 12, 2009 |
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Created and Creating Consider the lilies of the field. Pay attention (KataMATHete). When we fail to do this, to pay attention and consider the lilies, the birds, the grass... we miss the wonders that have always caught the attention of artists and photographers, poets, mystics and musicians. July 5, 2009 |
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Change of Heart A change of heart is the sole reality that allows us to seek the forgiveness of others, to forgive those others and, ultimately, to forgive ourselves as we anticipate the final call of "safe" at our true home by the Only Umpire who matters... June 28, 2009 |
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Wall-E It is time to REBOOT. Not only can we live differently, we must. Not only must we live differently, it may be the only way to truly live: in healthy relationship to all of creation and our creator. June 21, 2009 |
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Where words fail, music speaks And now, God, do it again-- June 14, 2009 |
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omg i <3 u Translation: Oh, my God, I love you. June 7, 2009 |
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Baggage Check I believe that we, the Church, are a beautiful body and a broken body and God loves us with whatever is a part of our baggage: the good, the bad, and the ugly. But it is time to check our baggage. Today, the wind of the Holy Spirit will blow through and air things out. We can repent and repack. May 31, 2009 |
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Ups and Downs The Book of Acts represents the first 30 years of the Church and it portrays plenty of ups and downs for the followers of Jesus. The writer wants us to remember that through it all, God was with them - and with us today. May 24, 2009 |
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All Means All? When God's Spirit has been at work it has always been to expand the circle of welcome and recognition that God's love is greater than we imagined. So, in God's time it will be true-- and I do pray that it might be so in our time as well, for this church and the Christian Church-- that All Means All. May 17, 2009 |
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Revealing Her-Story Recent discoveries are helping us see how women were a surprisingly large part of the early Christian church. However, their influence waned: a reminder that old ways and prejudice can always creep back in, if we are not vigilant. May 10, 2009 |
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Community Growth Like the ground that must be cultivated and cared for in a community garden for growth to occur, our hearts and souls must be tended for koinonia (community) to grow among us. There must be an openness for the spirit to work on us as we join in fellowship, and in our breaking of the bread, and in our service to others. We must learn to care for one another here in this garden so that there is no one needy among us spiritually, physically, or spiritually and then the love that grows here will spill out into the world. May 3, 2009 |
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Qualified? Our work as disciples, regardless of what other jobs we might hold, is to be about the work of saving lives: healing, loving, feeding, clothing, housing. Our work is just that important. And the most astounding thing is this: in the name of Jesus we are already qualified and by the power of the Spirit we are ready. April 26, 2009 |
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Collective Wisdom If the book, "The Wisdom of Crowds", is indeed correct -- we really are programmed to be collectively smart. When we all share our thoughts, honestly, kindly but independently and in all our diversity, our congregation, our community and our world will all be a better place. April 19, 2009 |
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Starting Over Mark ends his gospel without so much as an Amen. We are sent back to Galilee where we live and work and relate to one another and this crazy world with an opportunity to hear Jesus call to us again: turn around and believe the good news. Starting over on this day of new beginnings, we become the resurrection story. Easter 2009 |
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Re-Living the Last Week Our Palm/Passion Sunday service was based on the time frame and insights of The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan (Harper, San Francisco, 2006). The book takes Mark's version of Jesus' final days, setting the gospel in the socio-political context of his time. April 5, 2009 |
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Just Love The first four commandments are about how we are to love God, and the next six get us started loving our neighbor. In Judaism we come to understand God, full of mercy and with high expectations for social justice in community. March 29, 2009 |
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Pillars of Faith The Ten Commandments and the Great Commandment introduce features of a God-directed life. The Koran provides instruction and answers to the question: How? How do we love God with our heart, mind, soul, strength? How do we love our neighbor? The Five Pillars are the things Muslims do to live a life in the peace that comes from surrendering to God. March 22, 2009 |
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Living in the Moment Perhaps it was true in the case of the Buddha; certainly it was true that Jesus did not undergo the temptation to choose an easier way or walk the road that he walked so that we wouldn't have to. Rather, he showed us the Way we might choose to go. To live in this moment, to love in this moment, to be free and free others in this moment, what do you need to let go of? March 15, 2009 |
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Colors of the East Eastern religions, which can seem so exotic and so strange, still share many ideas that are quite familiar ...like the Sikh belief in One God, revealed by grace through his Word. March 8, 2009 |
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Many Paths, One Journey God is One... even if we are not. The rainbow stretches over us all. From God's perspective there is only one family-- the human family. March 1, 2009 |
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I can see clearly now ... There are many layers to the bandages that cover our eyes and it can be hard to tell when the last has fallen away. May any blinder that would have us imagine we know it all or have seen it all be removed, so that we can be surprised by the transfigured people and places around us where clearer reflections of God's love and light are trying to shine through. February 22, 2009 |
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Universal Precaution Jesus chose to break through any and every boundary that would divide us making us all a part of that radically inclusive community that is the kingdom of God. We are invited to write our own variations on this theme in our personal and congregational stories. February 15, 2009 |
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Particle of Faith Neutrinos passing through us by the trillions - and at the speed of light. Invisible for much of history - and yet their presence understood even before they could be seen. We believe in the work and power of a God unseen with eyes yet whose presence is felt in how God's people live. February 8, 2009 |
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Who's got your ear? When those things that would possess us are pushed out of our center and into their rightful places, there is an emptiness. Though it is a space that only God can both fill and fulfill, it takes some work -- a "careful discipline" (Nouwen) -- to receive God into it. February 1, 2009 |
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You never know ... Once caught in the net of God's love, we are invited to start casting out life lines to others. Get ready: you never know what you're going to get! January 25, 2009 |
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Move On When God begins to turn the world upside down, we can resist it, ignore it, celebrate it, or become a part of it. But, we all will have to "Move On" because God's dream and vision for what this world might yet be will not be stopped. January 18, 2009 |
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Remember Remember your baptism and be thankful. January 11, 2009 |
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Follow the Star We still have to seek and follow the Christ light. We have to recognize our God-given gifts and graces and use them in God's service. To do so is to be truly wise. January 4, 2009 |