9 Readings – God’s Voice OR Our Imagination?

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9 Readings – God’s Voice OR Our Imagination?

How to tell if God is calling / drawing / tugging at / communicating with you:
#1: God’s message / communication with you will sound like it comes from a place of love.
#2: God’s voice will help you understand how to better love God, love yourself, & love others.
#3: God will lead you to places of need where you can serve others.
#4: God will draw you to be a light of justice, kindness, and humility.
#5: God’s leading often appeals to our “natural” (i.e. God-given) interests and abilities.

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Mark 16:1-7 – Peter’s Call-Back Story

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Mark 16:1-7 – Peter’s Call-Back Story

Peter’s story of being called back is living proof of God’s amazing grace. Peter’s call-back story presses us to ask two questions about our own lives.
1 - How have we received the Good News of God’s love?
2 - How can we share the Good News of God’s love with others?

Let’s go find the Peters in our community – the people who think they are unworthy of God’s love and remind them that they are worthy of God’s love and our love. Let’s remind them that they are welcomed, they are invited, they are called back to – and needed – in this big, messy family we call the Kingdom of God!

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Take Up What Cross?!? – Matthew 16:21-28

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Take Up What Cross?!? – Matthew 16:21-28

“Follow me.” Follow You where?!?
“Follow me as we experience God’s transfiguring power. Follow me as we heal the sick, learn about forgiveness and accountability, discuss money management, confront authority as we seek social justice, and share one last Passover meal together. Follow me.”

When we, individually and as a community of faith, follow Jesus through all of that… then we will have experienced what it means to be the hands and feet of God in the world. And with so much “on the job training,” we will be well-equipped to passionately share our vision of a world that loves God, loves ourselves, and loves others.

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Who do YOU say I am? – Matthew 16:13-20

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Who do YOU say I am? – Matthew 16:13-20

In life’s most dramatic moments – good and bad – would you rather be connected with a Divine WHAT or a Divine WHO? We need to wrestle with Jesus’ question, “WHO do you say I am?” I encourage all of us to consider WHO answers that are no doubt informed by our understandings – our theologies – of WHAT Jesus was and is.
As we better understand our own theologies and relationships with God, we will be able to more comfortably, more instinctively, and more enthusiastically share our faith with the people we meet – people who desperately need to hear and know that they are precious children of the Living God.

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