I missed the story on NPR, but I listened to it online. You can too.
Kentucky Church Allows Pooches As Parishioners
--Julia
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Worth Reading
Jonathan Merrit, of RNS, the Religious News Service, recently interviewed Lillian Daniel.
Lilian Daniel is a UCC minister and a frequent author of the Daily Devotional. She is also the author of
When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church. The Seekers read and discussed this book earlier this summer.
You can read the interview here. It's worth reading. Rev. Daniels can be thought provoking but abrasive. In the interview she says
"Any idiot can find God alone in the sunset. It takes a certain maturity to find God in the person sitting next to you who not only voted for the wrong political party but has a baby who is crying while you’re trying to listen to the sermon. Community is where the religious rubber meets the road. People challenge us, ask hard questions, disagree, need things from us, require our forgiveness. It’s where we get to practice all the things we preach."
- See more at: http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/08/13/answering-the-spiritual-but-religious-an-interview-with-lillian-daniel/?ref=leaderboard#sthash.ExsToKaV.dpuf
After you read the interview, you might want to read the discussion in the comments. There is even a response by David Hayward on the NakedPastor blog. He says
"The SBNR [Spiritual But Not Religious] people I know are not a homogeneous whole but a diverse diaspora. For the most part, the ones I know are humble but confident. They are unusually deep and find ingenious ways of dealing with difficult situations. They are spiritually complex and fascinating. They hunger for a community they’ve concluded the church cannot seem to provide. They are fiercely and even defiantly independent. And they quit the church because they felt restricted, controlled or even harmed by the system, its ideology and the people who govern and administer them."
Read the blog posts. See what you think. And comment here or on one of those blogs.
--Julia
Lilian Daniel is a UCC minister and a frequent author of the Daily Devotional. She is also the author of
When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church. The Seekers read and discussed this book earlier this summer.
You can read the interview here. It's worth reading. Rev. Daniels can be thought provoking but abrasive. In the interview she says
"Any idiot can find God alone in the sunset. It takes a certain maturity to find God in the person sitting next to you who not only voted for the wrong political party but has a baby who is crying while you’re trying to listen to the sermon. Community is where the religious rubber meets the road. People challenge us, ask hard questions, disagree, need things from us, require our forgiveness. It’s where we get to practice all the things we preach."
- See more at: http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/08/13/answering-the-spiritual-but-religious-an-interview-with-lillian-daniel/?ref=leaderboard#sthash.ExsToKaV.dpuf
After you read the interview, you might want to read the discussion in the comments. There is even a response by David Hayward on the NakedPastor blog. He says
"The SBNR [Spiritual But Not Religious] people I know are not a homogeneous whole but a diverse diaspora. For the most part, the ones I know are humble but confident. They are unusually deep and find ingenious ways of dealing with difficult situations. They are spiritually complex and fascinating. They hunger for a community they’ve concluded the church cannot seem to provide. They are fiercely and even defiantly independent. And they quit the church because they felt restricted, controlled or even harmed by the system, its ideology and the people who govern and administer them."
Read the blog posts. See what you think. And comment here or on one of those blogs.
--Julia
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Sunday Service for August 18 Also: Last Play Date of the Summer
"We're on a mission from God!" If you remember the Blues Brothers from 1980's Saturday Night Live, you will remember that famous quote. I never figured out what mission the Blues Brothers were on but I think they may have been onto something. The reality is that if we profess to be a church, we are "on a mission from God" because we are all called to the work of carrying the light of God's love into the dark corners of life. As we near the conclusion of our summer series on the long range plan for FCC, we come to the place where we put into action all the values, purpose and vision statements that we have been learning about over the past two months. The question now is "what is our mission" and "are ready to accept it?" This Sunday's worship experience puts those questions before us. Are we really "on a mission from God?" Each one of us has to answer that question, for ourselves and for our church.
This Sunday, David Nussmann will be sharing two favorite hymns both with words by Erena Murray. The Anthem will be Sing a Happy Alleluia by Tracy Shirk, and the offering will be For the Music of Creation sung to the tune Ode to Joy by Ludwig van Beethoven. Organist, Gavin Craig, will play Paraphrase sur une mélodie de Beethoven by Marcel Dupré and Nun lob mein Seel de Herrn by Johann Christoph Bach. Our congregational hymns will be O God of Every Nation (LLANGLOFFAN); God of Grace and God of Glory (CWM RHONDDA); and By Gracious Powers (BONHOEFFER).
_____________________________________________________________________
Our last FCC Play Date will be Monday, August 19. Parents will need to bring a lunch for themselves and their kiddos if you want to eat. Plenty of water is encouraged as well. This is a great chance to get our kids together, but also to hang out with other parents! Contact Rev. Katelin Warren at katelin@fcc-houston.org with questions. Hope to see you there!!
Our last FCC Play Date will be Monday, August 19. Parents will need to bring a lunch for themselves and their kiddos if you want to eat. Plenty of water is encouraged as well. This is a great chance to get our kids together, but also to hang out with other parents! Contact Rev. Katelin Warren at katelin@fcc-houston.org with questions. Hope to see you there!!
Please Note:
This is not a "love 'em and leave 'em play date." You are responsible
for the care and feeding of your children while they are here. Please
do not plan on dropping them off and leaving. We want to get to know
our parents as much as our kids want to play together.
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