Mission statement:
We believe that we exist to share a sanctuary of love, warmth and laughter for all people. We recognize that God loves all of creation, including most definitely this growing community. We praise God for the ways in which the Spirit is moving within our midst.In our worship:
We are an inclusive community, a family of faith, which through prayer, song, the sacraments and liturgy seeks to feel closer to God, to praise God, to give thanks to God, and to seek forgiveness from God in order to grow in discipleship.In our Care Circles:
We seek to develop a community of people with a mature Christian faith; meaning a faith which leads us to care for others, that opens our hearts to service, an evolving faith that is the product of critical thinking and questioning. Our Care Circles are for all ages and are conducted in places inside the church and out.In our Missions
We seek to share the excitement of our Christian faith without judging others. In our missions, we seek to take our faith and beliefs from the inside out, and know that our missions require that we must also bring the outside in. We take Christ's admonition-to go forth and share the good news-as our own, which we strive to do in word and deed both locally and globally |
Sunday, June 9, 2013 8:37 AM
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Sacred Readings:
Romans 9:14-24
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For God says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
It does not, therefore, depend on mortal desire or effort but on God’s mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh:
“I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Therefore, God has mercy on whom God wants to have mercy, and God hardens whom God wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists God’s will?”
But who are you, O mortal, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God, choosing to show God’s wrath and make God’s power known, bore with great patience the objects of God’s wrath – prepared for destruction?
What if God did this to make the riches of God’s glory known to the objects of God’s mercy, whom God prepared in advance for glory – even us, whom God also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
John 3:16-21, 35-36
“For God so loved the world that God gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
“For God did not send God’s Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
“Everyone who does evil hates the light; and will not come into the light for fear that one’s deeds will be exposed.
“But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what that one has done has been done through God.”
“The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on that one.”
