What is something I say a lot?“That you say that I’m smart.” What makes me happy?Tickling you! It makes you laugh What makes me sad?Being disobedient. How tall am I?Bigger than me! Like THIS big (gestures with her hands.) I’m like that big too when I stand on the chair! What’s my favorite thing to […]
Where is God?
sermon transcript preached November 3, 2019 at Monroe Free Methodist on the 21st Sunday after Pentecost How have you seen God? This is the question I’m inviting you to answer. Maybe you have a quick response, or maybe that question makes you feel very uneasy. Or maybe, like Zacchaeus, it’s a little of both. You’ve […]
Care of Creation
Every week during our church service, we explore a different spiritual discipline intended to help us grow to become more like Jesus in our everyday lives. (Because going to church isn’t the point – becoming like Jesus is!) And during this particular church season of Ordinary Time, we’re exploring practices that line up with the […]
Chased by Mercy + Goodness
Mother’s Day is a mixed bag. This day can elicit profound joy or swallow us into devastating sorrow (sometimes both at the same time). It is good, very good, to show love and appreciation for the moms in our lives. Those handmade pictures and family lunches and words of encouragement can fuel us moms and […]
Yoga for Advent: Week 3
Scripture Meditation Advent, however, invites us into an entirely different experience with waiting. During this season of anticipation and longing for the coming of Christ, we can actually choose to hurry up and wait. Rather than allowing our waiting to be entirely governed by external forces, we can actually create times of stillness for watching […]
Yoga for Advent: Session 2
Scripture Meditation All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for […]
Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
These days leading up to Christmas are easily filled with preparations. Maybe you’re following an Advent devotional and you’re already a few days behind (like we are). Maybe you were hoping to have your tree up and the lights strung, but that just isn’t happening. Maybe you are one of those cookie-baking-extravaganza-types who buys a […]
Yoga for Advent: Session 1
Music Advent: Music in Solitude arranged and produced by Eric Nordhoff (available at Transforming Center Resources Reflection So this week, let’s practice waking up so we don’t miss any of the ways in which Christ comes to us every day. Sitting quietly in the pre-dawn hours waiting for the light to come—almost imperceptible at first—is […]
The Work of the People
A note to my friends, a people called Monroe Free Methodist From where I sit on Sunday mornings I have noticed something shifting among us, something beautiful and essential changing the very nature of who we are as a church. Have you felt it too? No longer is there an invisible line separating the leaders […]
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Living Disciplined in the Dark
In a brief reading of Psalm 66 it’s easy to get distracted by the overarching theme of praise and we might start to think the spiritual journey is linear: a straight line of praising God. The psalmist declares that all the world ought to be offering constant adoration to God for the great deeds He […]