Month: January 2011

  • Queries for Discernment and Seeking

    I was asked by the clerk of a committee I am on to guide worship the other day. He wanted me not to prepare a sermon but rather help prepare our hearts and minds for doing work around discernment. The point for us as a group was to hold that tension between programmed and unprogrammed,…

  • Prayer as Song

    I’ve been thinking about prayer today, and the many ways we pray that are not simply meal-time prayers (God thank you for the food). I came across Psalm 104:33 in my reading this morning which makes this point clearly: I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to…

  • Preparatory Materials for Quaker Heritage Day (Part 1)

    Heralding The New Creation: Mission as Participation in the Quaker Tradition Quaker Heritage Day: Berkeley Friends Church February 12, 2011 Here are some quotes, Scripture, and Queries for personal preparation for our gathering together at Quaker Heritage Day. I may add more to this (thus the part 1) but I may not. I don’t want to…

  • Peace Through Equality: Lucretia Mott, Paul and MLK (Galatians 3:26-29)

    This was the message I gave this morning based on Galatians 3:26-29. First we discussed some of these queries: What do you think the connections between peace and equality are in the passages above? In what ways have I experienced inequality in my own life or around me? What inequalities stir us most? What disturbs…

  • Heralds of Peace (Luke 10)

    This morning the big word, the word of the day for all you Pee-Wee’s Playhouse fans in the congregation, is participation. It is a word that signals collective activity, collaboration, co-operation, co-mmunity, co-laboring. A mutual working together in small ways that add up over time. It might conjure up the image of a mustard seed,…