"Lights will guide you home -- And ignite your bones -- And I will try to fix you"

I was teaching Sunday School so wasn't in the service this week.  I tried listening to the Sermon online two separate times but it was so scattered that I couldn't follow it.  Maybe it's me.  I would suddenly realize that I hadn't been listening for the past few minutes and I had no idea what was going on.  I decided to skip this one. 

The next line of the Communion Prayer is this: "Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit." 

In Sunday School we read Pslam 51 and looked at a story from The Voyage of the Dawn Treador where Eustace, who has been turned into a dragon, has an interaction with Aslan in which Aslan carefully and painfully removes the scales from Eustace's body so that he's no longer a dragon.  He's now just a naked and vulnerable little child.  Then Aslan dresses him in new clothes.  This is beautiful and I think it's what we all long for.

To be cleansed by the Holy Spirit... 

...

 

"Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known and from you no secrets are hid..." We celebrate the Lord's Supper every week at Emmaus. This is beautiful. It's an act of worship that involves taste and touch and smell -- senses that typically get left out in a worship service. I think it was Luther who said something like, "God gave us five senses. Why would we ever use less than that in worship?" And yet we do. So often our experience of God in a worship service is nothing more than auditory; we hear a sermon and some songs. Sometimes it's visual too as we see the cross or some other images that frame our experience. But in communion... In communion we are called out of our seats. We're brought face to face with someone who looks us in the eye, calls us by name and tells us that Christ's body was broken for us and Christ's blood was shed for us. Then we touch this body. And we smell and taste and savor this moment. It's truly beautiful. For the next 7 weeks we'll be...

I wasn't in the worship service this week. Bracken is going through major separation anxiety so Morgan and I are taking turns hanging out with him in the nursery. This week was my turn. I listened to the sermon online today. When you listen online, you miss the music, the people sitting around you, the passing of the peace, the visual images that fill the room and create such an amazing space, the Lord's Supper, the elbow in the ribs when something is said your wife thinks is especially significant for you, the coffee... Even with these internet limitations, the sermon was still quite powerful. It was the second week of the 2-week kickoff of 2009 _together. Last week we briefly explored what _together has to do with our resources (as far as the church budget goes.) This week we turned from resources to relationships. The foundation for both weeks (and possibly for the entire year) is the simple assertion that "The full Christian experience cannot happen when we are not sharing life with others."...

Emmaus has a theme for each year. In 2007 it was "Rooted." In 2008 it was "Worthwhile." The theme works out to be a general concept around which various sermon series are gathered. I was skeptical at first. I thought it would be too hard to sustain interest and focus over 52 weeks. But coming out of 2008 I have the overwhelming sense, more than ever before, that I was able to carefully consider what in my life is worthwhile and what isn't. Being reminded of this theme each week (sometimes bombarded with this theme) turned out to be a wonderful blessing. And so, for the last few weeks of the year, I began to wonder what was next. The leadership team at Emmaus did a great job generating a buzz for the 2009 theme. There were a few announcements over the past month encouraging people not to miss the first 2 services of 2009 - when the new theme would be revealed. There was an all church email reenforcing this message. Kathryn then sent a personal email to some of the volunteers to generate more hype. All of this communication alluded to the fact that there would be a new theme but stopped short of giving any clue as to what the new theme might be. Maybe I'm weird (maybe?) but I was on the edge of my seat. I told Morgan that I was more excited for church last week than I ever had been before. It was like we were left with the season finale cliffhanger a while back, then teased with a few internet trailers. And then the time came for the premier. ...