Good Food: Hungry for Hope (December 1, 2024)
Welcome to Advent! This is a season of preparation, of making our hearts and minds ready to receive the good news that God has come to us once again. It’s also a season of waiting and longing, not only for the celebrations of Christmas but for Christ’s return, when our hope will become sight and our prayer will become praise. This year, even in the midst of indulgence and celebrations and lights and decorations and events – we’re using this space to zero in on what we’re REALLY hungry for: hope, peace, joy, and love. For the next four weeks, we’ll take a look at each one in...
Read MoreAll Saints Sunday: An Eternal Hope – November 3, 2024
The lectionary doesn’t give us passages from the book of Revelation very often, because it’s truly a little terrifying and can be tricky to interpret. But today, we’re going to hear from the very end of the book – the second-to-last chapter – which offers us a vision of what God intends eternity to look like. Scripture: Revelation 21:1-6 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And...
Read MoreWho We Are: The Work of Love – October 27, 2024
Today, we’re wrapping up our three-week series introducing and diving deep into Parkwood’s mission statement. If you’ve missed the last two weeks, I encourage you to check out our YouTube channel to catch up – this will make more sense in context, I promise. Our Mission is this:Rooted in Christ’s love, Parkwood Presbyterian Church seeks to grow in love for God and neighbor. This love is the work of our hearts, to care and be cared for;of our souls, to know and be known,of our minds, to learn and to teach,and our strength, to do justice and sow hope. Today, we’re going to...
Read MoreWho We Are: Growing in Love for God – October 20, 2024
Today, we continue our deep dive into Parkwood’s Mission Statement, looking at where it came from, how it shapes who we are as a church community and what we do. It goes like this: Rooted in Christ’s love, Parkwood Presbyterian Church seeks to grow in love for God and neighbor. This love is the work of our hearts, to care and be cared for;of our souls, to know and be known;of our minds, to learn and to teach;and our strength, to do justice and sow hope. Today, we’re going to zero in on growing in love for God. What does that look like? Scripture: Mark 12:28-34 One of the...
Read MoreWho We Are: Rooted in Christ’s Love – October 13, 2024
In 2021, as we began to emerge from the chaos of pandemic life, we as a congregation and the elders at the time engaged in a process of thinking, planning, dreaming, and discerning. Out of that process came two statements: a statement of our mission, our answer to the question “why are we here?”, and a statement of call, our answer to “how do we do that?” Today, and for the next two weeks, we’ll be taking a deep dive into what this mission and call really says about us as a church. Because I recognize that on the surface, most of this doesn’t seem that new or exciting. But there is so much...
Read MorePlaying Together – World Communion Sunday, October 6, 2024
Today, we meet Jesus in the gospel according to Mark. We find him in the middle of his travelling ministry – in chapters 9 and 10, he’s been in Capernaum, travelling through Galilee, and now he’s in Judea and the region beyond the Jordan. A group of religious leaders just came up to test Jesus, asking him about particular points of the law, and he answers them. That’s where we pick up the story. Scripture: Mark 10:13-16 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might lay hands on them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and...
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