Sweet Spots
Ideas and messages from Len Sweet.
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Origins and Wellness
America is not a melting pot. It is a salad bowl.
The metaphor shifted and it matters.
The Psychological Benefits of Writing Regularly
You don’t consider yourself a writer? There are so many reasons to cultivate the habit, even it is making a Facebook post. read more…
The Great American Songbook
I am so encouraged when young people have opportunities to pursue big dreams and become more of who they want to be. Many musical opportunities exist, but finding the ones that feed the soul, challenge the intellect, inspire the imagination, and develop the character, is often difficult. Finding opportunities to carry on a genre or tradition of music that has made people happy for generations it a rare find. Almost anyone can sing a pop song … not everyone can carry on in the footsteps of the generation of singers and instrumentalists who recorded the American Songbook. read more…
See the Music
To coincide with the First Night of the 122nd Proms Festival, the BBC has commissioned a project that showcases music in a different way: projection of musical imagery onto the face of a 300-yr old cello. The soloist in the opening concert – Sol Gabetta – agreed to have her Goffriller cello modified to receive cutting-edge tracking and projection technology. According to the artists and technicians who created the project, this combination creates a “bespoke piece of animation” projected onto [the cello] while it is being played. “The animation both reacts to and visualizes elements of the piece whilst tracking … the instrument’s movement during [the] performance, creating a piece which shows the cello in a brand new light.” read more…
Disciple Go!
Disciple Go! Lectionary 24 July 2016 10th Sunday After Pentecost Hosea 1:2-10 Psalm 85 Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19) Luke 11:1-13 Text to Life Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last two weeks, you’ve heard about “Pokemon Go.” Good news? It’s a fun game that actually gets kids outside, walking…
Secret Savior
Secret Savior Story Lectionary Jacob’s Prayer (Genesis 32:9-12) Our Father and Savior (Isaiah 63:11-19 and 64) Hezekiah’s Prayer (2 Kings 19:15-19) Hannah’s Prayer (1 Samuel 2:1-10) Nehemiah’s Prayer (Nehemiah 1) The Kaddish Psalm 51: David’s Prayer Psalm 103: Praise the Lord My Soul who is like a Father to Me…
Back to the Hebrew –Preaching Tip for 24 July 2016
Sometimes you may wonder about a metaphor in scripture that doesn’t seem to have much power. If so, you are certainly missing something. Try going back to the Hebrew meaning of that metaphor. You will surely hit pay dirt. Much is lost in translation. Take the time to investigate key metaphors. …
Pastor’s Prayer for 24 July 2016
The task thy wisdom hath assigned,
O let me cheerfully fulfill;
in all my works thy presence find,
and prove thy good and perfect will.
Thee may I set at my right hand,
whose eyes mine inmost substance see:
and labor on at thy command,
and offer all my works to thee.
Give me to bear thy easy yoke,
and every moment watch and pray;
and still to things eternal look,
and hasten to thy glorious Day.
For thee delightfully employ
whate’er thy bounteous grace hath given;
and run my course with even joy,
and closely walk with thee to heav’n.
Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749)
Our Past and Present Future
The Mystery of Urban Psychosis
Why are paranoia and schizophrenia more common in cities? Mental illness is a terrible disease that often leaves victims and family members struggling for answers and the right treatment. I am a big believer in the ability of trees, sun, and stars to help soothe a soul. When we incorporate nature into our worship structures and practices, we are halfway home. read more…
Geography of Grace
Geography of Grace:
Doing Theology from Below
Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke
Prepare to be astonished and challenged when you read Geography of Grace: Doing Theology from Below (Street Psalms Press, 2012) by Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke. Keep your box of tissues close by, too. This history and methodology of an ongoing, gritty street ministry is as beautiful as it is shocking. Geography of Grace was written by two friends who are members of a religious order called Street Psalms. “Teaching and preaching good news in hard places,” is how they describe their calling. As Rocke and Van Dyke tell it in the introduction, Geography of Grace was written “from the crucible of deep personal struggle among a community of leaders that has spent many years “doing” grass roots theology. So, we are not writing in isolation as “keepers of truth” or “insightful innovators”; rather, we are attempting to give voice to a conversation we have been engaged in for 20 plus years. A conversation rooted in our growing love for the Word and the world.”
The title, Geography of Grace, refers to the idea that “grace, like water, flows downhill and pools up in the lowest places,” and therefore occupies a location, a geography of sorts. Rocke and Van Dyke ask, “Could it be that the deepest reservoirs of God’s grace are located in the lowest places?… Do the people and places most marginalized and ostracized by the mainstream society and the church actually hold a prophetic vision for us all?” read more…
Grief Amplified
Of course, none of us knew, a week ago, what this past week would hold. The unexplainable violence. The continuing litany of names of those killed with guns. The shedding of blood in parking lots, on street corners, and inside cars! The sons and husbands and daddys who will never hold the hands of their loved ones again.
The weeping echoes and reverberates in bones and marrow, in oceans and mountains, in hearts and mouths … everywhere. read more…