This is my favorite Sunday in Advent: Joy Sunday! I love this moment in cyclical time, with the anticipation of Christmas Eve just around the corner and all of the decorations up and festive sweaters in full rotation. It follows …
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There is a story in Scripture of this time when Jesus saw a group of ten lepers –those most down and out, sick in body, rejected by the majority culture, alone and hopeless in their segregated community. In the story, …
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An extravagant party is the setting for the parable today. Jesus often uses food, banquets, and eating together to symbolize the arrival of heaven on earth, God’s reign of love made true. But, even in Biblical storytelling, parties rarely seem …
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It was two years ago this week on All Hallows Eve that a handful of friends and I finally walked into Cathedral Square in Santiago de Compostella, Spain. These were the final steps of the 500-mile journey we had embarked …
Continue readingSeveral UCG members reflect on what Pride means to them. Mary Fukuyama Good Morning Everyone, My name is Mary Fukuyama and I have been asked to provide some background history about how UCG become an ONA church. Just the other …
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BPM Service with Live Oak Sangha and Swamp Sangha October 15, 2017 “Cultivating the Garden Within” Kevin Conlin I am a gardener in the conventional world. And I love this metaphor of “cultivating the garden within” for my spiritual practice. …
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I Pledge Allegiance Andy Bachmann October 1, 2017 In 8th grade, I was elected Vice-President of the Student Council for my school, McClure Junior High. I wasn’t sure what it meant to be Vice-President, but my mom assured me it …
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The Shape of Things to Come has been our worship theme over this month, and as we’ve noted, we shape our own realities with raw materials and also we are molded by other people’s actions and by external events that …
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Peaceful Neighbors Talia Raymond 9/17/2017 One of the reasons that I wanted to go to Rollins College was because Mr. Rogers went there, and, in my mind there could be no better recommendation. When I settled on music as a …
Continue readingShaping Up at Amelia Island James 1:2-4; 19-25 September 3, 2017 Shelly Wilson Maybe you’ve written them–those reports at the beginning of school–what I did on my summer vacation. This year, we went to Amelia Island for a week and …
Continue readingLast Things First Andy Bachmann August 27, 2017 Matthew 19:16, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” The last time I hiked the Overlook Trail in the Porcupine Mountains was the first time I hiked …
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I was surprised to read in the newsletter that I was preaching on hell and anger; not because I didn’t know I was going to preach on these subjects or because I’m not going to, but because it wasn’t my …
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