Sweet Spots
Ideas and messages from Len Sweet.
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Pastor’s Prayer for 30 July 2017
CREED OF CHRISTIAN LOVE IN CHRIST
Faith issues in love. Love is not a belief system. Love does not mean agreeing with everything someone else thinks. Love prevails as the only precept. Love rises above conflict, extends the hand of peace, even the peace to differ. Love bears the fruits of the kingdom. Love does not require another to be like you. But love respects differences, respects all people as children of God, all searching, all erring. Love exists within humility and humanity. Love cares for others, even if others do not care. Love does not throw stones. Nor make demands. And especially not the demand for uniformity. But love celebrates divides and draws strings across canyons. Love extends hands that touch hearts, because Love is greater than opinions, dictums, and legalisms. Love does not seek to extinguish individualism but celebrates community, invites and builds relationships even when each wears different shoes and walks different talks. Love sings a tune of hope and invites a symphony of diverse voices, not demanding the same notes, the same song, the same way, but sings together with others. Love maintains identity while rejoicing in human relationship with all people. Love God and neighbor. Love God first. Love to give your neighbor even better than what you would love for yourself. Love your neighbor because your neighbor is human like you. Humanity has no sides. Love takes no sides. But only affirms and recognizes its neighbor in flesh and blood. The blood of humanity is thicker than the waters of contention, and we all share blood. Love is not an ideology or a standard, not an expectation or demand. Love does not seek justice and is not dependent on fairness, but transcends both of these. For Christian life is not fair, but is committed to the gifts of love and mercy. Love is merciful. Love lets go of control, power, and the desire to mete out punishments. Love respects that God is the only justice. And that God’s justice is cloaked in mercy. Love desires not to serve in the place of God, but steps aside to allow Christ to lead. Love does not need idols. But serves only in the name of the one who is Love. Love God. Love neighbor. Love in faith that the Love of Christ is more powerful than being right. That love is more powerful than being wrong. Only Love wins. Love in faith. Just love.
–Lori Wagner
Walking in the Air
Aled Jones is a Welsh vocalist, a celebrated boy treble who rose to prominence with a popular Christmas Album, and then a BBC documentary on his training and burgeoning career. From the age of 8 through 12, Jones sang every week in the choir of the cathedral in Bangor Wales. At age 12, he began performing, recording, and singing throughout the UK, recording thirteen albums before his voice broke in 1986. You see, the thing about boy trebles is that their voices are stunning: pure, clean, and beautiful. They develop, and then they change…and no one can predict exactly when that natural process will happen.
But, despite this expected change, and the ensuing reduction in Jones’ recording schedule, he did keep singing and performing. His recent project is a series of duets with his younger self, bringing the innocence of the earlier recordings together with the maturity of his career as an international concert artist. read more…
The Fred Rogers Doctrine
The Fred Rogers Doctrine Lectionary 23 July 2017 7th Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 28:10-19a Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24 Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Text to Life It was a really hot summer day in the small community of Mountain Home, Idaho. [This happened only a couple of weeks ago if you…
House of God
House of God Story Lectionary 23 July 2017 God’s Promise to Flourish the House of David (2 Samuel 7 / 1 Chronicles 17) Psalm 84: Psalm of Praise for the Courts of the Lord Psalm 18: The Lord is My Rock The Mountain of the Lord is the House of…
Don’t impose! –Preaching Tip for 23 July 2017
Be careful not to impose your 21st century ideas upon the 1st century scriptures. While you want to “re-frame” the scriptures so people can understand the meanings and metaphors in today’s world, you can’t place meanings over the original to create meanings that weren’t there. For example, when Paul talks…
Lion
Lion, featuring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara
Rated PG-13
–Review by Ashley Linne
Lion tells the emotional and beautiful true story of an Indian boy named Saroo who was lost on the streets of Calcutta at age 5, adopted by an Australian family, and 25 years later searches for his family of origin. It received 6 Oscar nominations, won 2 BAFTA awards, and won the DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director.
There is a stark contrast between the first and second halves of the film, and the last few minutes will have you in tears if the rest of the film hasn’t already. The richness of the locations, the colors, the actors—it all encompasses you in Saroo’s world. You feel everything he feels; at least I pray for your sake that you do.
Pastor’s Prayer for 23 July 2017
Fisherman’s Prayer
I pray that I may live to fish
Until my dying day.
And when it comes to my last cast,
I then most humbly pray:
When in the Lord’s great landing net
And peacefully asleep
That in His mercy I be judged
Big enough to keep.
–Anonymous Author
The Apothecary
The Apothecary Story Lectionary 16 July 2017 I Am the Lord Who Heals You (Exodus 15:26) I Will Take All Sickness Away From You (Deuteronomy 7:15) The Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53) Hezekiah’s Illness (Isaiah 38) The Promise of Healing (Isaiah 40) Jesus’ Mission of Healing and Restoration, He Would Declare…
Rain Stories
Jesus Was a Storyteller
Storyteller
Summary: A few months ago, I came across this wonderful album “A Heartland Liturgy” by Jonathan Rundman. This song goes well with this offering of The Digital Feast and would work well in worship so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
The Stars: A Mythopoetic Masterpiece Serenading the Night Sky Through Myths and Stories from Around the World
Summary: “I sometimes ask myself whether I would be studying galaxies if they were ugly… I think it may not be irrelevant that galaxies are really very attractive,” Vera Rubin, who confirmed the existence of dark matter, pondered in her most extensive interview. More than a century earlier, trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell — Rubin’s formative role model — contemplated the same question after attending a lecture on beauty by Emerson: Mitchell, too, found the splendor of the cosmos inseparable from its allure as an object of scientific investigation, each enhancing rather than distracting or detracting from the other.” read more…