Posts from October 2024
Democracy & the Renewing of Our Minds
October 30, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Successful democracies require that people learn to understand their own beliefs and actions, to reflect nondefensively on these in the presence of others having different beliefs and experiences, and to use these experiences to develop new understandings in the pursuit of the common good. ~ Jon Wergin, Deep Learning in a Disorienting World These words leapt off the page as I was engaging my grad school reading for the week. Wergin…
Vision & Values Gatherings
For the last three years, we’ve been journeying through The Great Story. Our goal at the outset was to understand the larger arc of scripture and the grand story of what it is trying to tell us. This is a God of relationships whose primary desire has been to connect with us and help us to connect with all of creation. As we near the end of this three-year journey, we couldn’t be more excited to share with you some of the…
Wesleyan Quadrilateral
October 23, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, A few weeks ago, I shared one of our core United Methodist frameworks, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. This framework provides a helpful tool for how we understand and come to know God I like this second image because it also helps us to see how they interact, and particularly how we read and understand scripture. Scripture provides a place to start from and to stand. It is the primary way the story…
For Equilibrium
October 9, 2024A Note from Pastor Jon Dear Friends, I was reading an article about human emotion and came across this phrase “paleomammalian cortex.” I thought theological terminology was difficult enough, but as I read I learned that this is how engineering types talk about the emotional centers of our brain. The emotional center of our brain For me, finding this emotional center can mean reading scripture or looking at an image and entering into the scene. It means moving…
Finding Wonder in the Mess
October 2, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Adorable. I love all things adorable. Adorable small towns. Adorable cobblestone streets and squares. Adorable bookstores and coffee shops in said small towns and squares, preferably with adorable gardens and patios where I can sit and savor it all. It took me a while to understand how much the aesthetic around me impacts the way my body feels and the energy I have for my work. There is an intense amount…