We believe in a faith that is marked by personal transformation.

We believe in a faith that is not fueled by a self-serving agenda.

We believe in a faith that is as true in actions as in words.

We believe in a faith that leads to a haggard life.

We believe in a faith that happens in dialogue not monologue.

We believe in a faith that experiences poverty for the other.

We believe in a faith that joins the marginalized.

We believe in a faith that transforms communities as well as individuals.

We believe in a faith that exists for the poor as well as the rich.

We believe in a faith that is for the forgotten as well as the popular.

We believe in a faith that is for the anonymous as well as the famous.

We believe in a faith that is for the beaten as well as the abuser.

We believe in a faith that brings hope.

_____________________

Pastor Bob concluded his message, “Good Acts of a Samaritan” this past Sunday with this creed from his friend, Tony Kriz’s new book, “Neighbors and Wisemen: Encounters in a Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places”

 

This week’s audio recording of Pastor Bob’s sermon – Sacred Love of God –  is broken up into 2 parts.  We had technical difficulties for the first 15 minutes of the sermon.  Thus, the first 15 minutes have been recorded separately as – Part 1.  The rest of the sermon has been recorded clearly and both are available in the “Current Sermon Series” section on the right of this page.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

To God, Creator of all that is,

Source of all we have been given,

For the dear one who has prepared,

For dear ones with us,

For dear ones far away,

For dear ones no longer here,

For dear ones yet to come.

For all this table holds,

For the garden from which this comes,

For the earth, the sun and rain,

For the plants and the fruits that emerged,

For the gardener,

For those who harvest,

For animals,

For those who raise them with care and respect.

Open us to receive with care and respect,

The blessings of our table,

To nurture our bodies, minds, and spirits,

To live in a fullness that honors the blessing

Of all that God has provided.

Amen.

__________________

Taken from: Warrior, Mystic, Monk: A Training Manuel for Being Fully Alive.  A Place Apart, Putney, VT

 

On the first Sunday of our year-long focus on the Jesus Creed, SFC was asked to write on little Post-it hearts what they considered it meant to “Love God and Love Others.”   Here are the people of SFC’s responses:

• Taking Time to Listen– Really listen
• Treating others as you would treat yourself and your family
• En-Courage Be gentle
• Open mindedness & acceptance – I try to look at people, situations I disagree with
• “playing together,” Spending time together at and outside of “church, ”Growing in the Word together, Sharing meals with those needing  them, by “social justice” service opportunities, babysitting children so parents can spend time alone together, celebrating and grieving together
• Hospitality, Encouragement, Hope, Enduring throughout the ages
• See people
• Seeing people’s differences and liking them because of those things.
• Obey
• Try to be like Jesus – to others – showing kindness
• Spending time with each other – family ? and together
• Invest Time in/with them
• Care for neighbor. Care for grandsons.
• Humor
• Talk and helping
• Being friendly
• I like to share and spend time with friends – Pray to God
• Pray for people
• Fellowship
• Patience with people
• Treating others like Jesus would. Try and always see others or try to see them through Jesus eyes not mine.
• Encourage others, Provide for basic needs for those in need, pray for others.
• By trying to be there for our families. Try to be honest and fair to others to help them in need.
• Friendly!
• By listening
• Spending time together
• Being inclusive not exclusive
• By following God. By showing that we care.
• Spend time with God & share words of encouragement, with others
• Have grace, accept grace
• A smile, a prayer, thankful, encourage, help. Service, gifts, compassion, loving even the unloveable. Just listening, forgiving the unforgivable, loving you where your at
• Meeting people where they are at rather than where we think they should be.
• Caring for each other in our families and those in our community and everyday life…lend a hand…smile… help.
• I pray to Him
• I love God for life
• Help my neighbor – pray
• By giving hugs
• Listen, encourage, bring Son-shine to others, smile and greet, pray with and for others, invite neighbors in, employ the needy for yard work, eat with others as much as possible, share.
• Show love to grand kids
• Spending time together – teachers teaching me
• By making choices that put my spouse’s desire above mine
• Love God by providing meals to others. Loving others by being a listening ear and praying heart.
• I tell my mom I love her and give her  hugs.
• I give my grammy hugs.
• Helping others
• Love my friends by sharing with them – Praying for my family
• I will care for others and spread the love of Jesus for God and the people
• I love other by respecting
• Loving God – I spend time alone with talking, asking ?’s and listening. I read His word and try to remain alert to daily circumstances where I can respond to His teachings/leadings
• I love by showing kindness and being affectionate
• Countless “rescues” to stranded people
• Free babysitting for going on six years for two small boys
• Showing love through serving
• Love God by talking daily to him, listening to him…Love others by kindness being the face of Jesus
• Listening, cooking, praying
• Love God – Be with Him, abide in His presence, serve, love others.  Feed them, tell them, hugs, care, encourage, value and honor
• Serve in His church.  Read God’s  word.  Show kindness to others.
• I have forgiven.  I am released from pain and anger.
• Tolerance and understanding.  Holy Spirit to guide us in wisdom.
• By being someone who listens to others.
• Give kids work so they can make money.
• I give God the first moments of my day every morning waiting expectantly.  Something good is going to happen to me today.
• Pray for needs as I hear about them.  Help with Children’s Church and preschool kids and MOPS.
• I give people rides who need them and while they are with me, I share God’s love with them.
• Listen with all your heart.  Speak with love in your heart for that person regardless.
• Family.  Be nice.
• Respect.  Truth.  Kindness.
• Be kind.
• Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh.  He is my Father and Savior and only true reason that all people have a purpose to live and die.
• I listen to God and to people.
• Be helpful.
• Pray for them.
• Be nice.  Be kind.  Be helpful.
• Talk with.
• Praise with my heart for loving others.
• Praise God through songs and worship.
• Pray for one another.  Give lots of smiles and hugs.
• Giving hugs.  Manly hugs.
• I love God because He helps me get through each day.
• Being creative as He guides.
• Spend time with others and God.  Listen and share your hearts.
• Serving the church family.
• Always being there for my friends.
• Giving.
• People:  In acceptance.  God:  In study of His word and seeking His will and direction.
• Giving time and money to God’s work and those in need.
• I love God because He loves me.  I can pray and God always answers prayers
• Forgetting.  Remembering.
• Love God.  Read God’s love letters to me.  Tell Him thanks and follow what He says.  Let Him live in me.
• Pray for others.  Trust, praise and thank God for His great love.
• We love Him if we do what He says.  Pray.
• Pray for others.
• Spending time.  Understanding differences.  Being a friend.
• We serve at the community meal once a month.  We share our yard tools with our neighbor next door.  We glean food for SACA from the Farmer’s market.
• Be a good neighbor.
• Pray, tithe and teaching.  Spare change.  Listening to God and others.  Praise, dish washing, coffee, provide living space for someone.  Encouragement, pastoral council.  Preaching.
• Taking care of my family’s needs: home, food, clothes, prayer and training.  Making breakfast for the Monday morning Bible study.  Serving on Hospitality committee, Ladies Retreat committee, having fellowship, praying.
• Loving God for all His blessings.
• Encourage others.
• I don’t know.
• Friendship.
• Complete and total obedience (to God).  Others: Display truth in life (what is truth)?
• Listen to others and pray for them and their needs.
• I love God by worshiping Him with everything I’ve got in my vehicle.  I love others by blessing others unexpectedly and by checking on the welfare of my friends.
• Be available.
• Listen to and be guided by the Holy Spirit.  Help and encourage others as put on my plate.
• Teaching kids about God.  Being God-like at work, at home, in stores, everywhere.  Taking care of the universe.  Helping the needy by giving financially, in kind or offering my services.  Being  a good example to my child and others.

There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about.

Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking.

Notice what you care about.  Assume that many others share your dreams.

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.

Talk to people you know.

Talk to people you don’t know.

Talk to people you never talk to.

Be intrigued by the differences you hear.

Expect to be surprised.

Treasure curiosity more than creativity.

Invite in everybody who care to work on what’s possible.

Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.

Know that creative solutions come from new connections.

Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.

Real listening always brings people closer together.

Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.

Rely on human goodness.  Stay together.

______________________________

A mantra for us as we explore Loving God and Loving Others.

From Margaret Wheatley’s book Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future.

IT IS COMING THIS SUNDAY – ARE YOU READY?

Since February, I have been wrestling with an identity crisis, not personally, but corporately.  Let me explain.

This past February, the elders and I took on the task of presenting SFC with a Conversation Café.  Through the Café we began to respond to 10 foundational questions for SFC.   For several months, the committee clerks and I have read and re-read those answers, thought about the implications, and wondered what all could be gleaned.  As one who tries to step back and look at the bigger picture, one thing I noticed were several items regarding our “identity” at SFC.

To begin, I tasked myself to address some of the issues I was seeing emerge from the Café through my own weekly sermons.  I dedicated two sermon series to the task:  Togethering and Seeing Spiritual.  Both series emphasized areas where the Conversation Café had illumined the need for further teaching and discussion.  In May, the elders appointed Laurel Summers to the task of Adult Education at SFC.  Together, Laurel and I have been working to redesign and develop an adult education plan to fit our goals and mission at SFC.  As well, Deborah Climer and our Christian Education Committee have been working very hard on rethinking our opportunities for children.  Each area will be bringing exciting changes this fall for our continued growth.

Overall the Conversation Café did its job – it started a great deal of conversation.  And when people begin to talk, differences and similarities in ideas always rise to the top of the discussion.  I realized quickly SFC was a diverse place – theologically, stylistically, missionally, educationally, politically, economically, and in many other areas.

Whenever presented with such contrasts, I turn to Jesus (not trying to be cliché).  Jesus was presented with diversity in thinking, in theology, in mission.  He bridged a gap educationally, economically, politically, and even at times psychologically.

One time, when an expert in the law asked Jesus for the greatest commandment, Jesus responded with the Shema, the ancient Jewish creed that commanded Israel to love God with their heart, soul, mind, and strength.  But it was the next part of Jesus’ answer that would literally change the course of history.  Jesus amended the Shema, giving his followers (and that includes us) a new creed for life.  Not only are we to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, but we are to love others as we do ourselves.

It was in reviewing Jesus’ words that I realized his creed (considered by many as The Jesus Creed) to love God and others is at the core of our identity as followers of Christ.  Jesus’ response needs to be our response at SFC.  Ironically, we already use “Loving God…Loving Others” as a “tag line” on most of our materials and media, but how well do we understand what all that entails?

So in response to all that we have been learning, from September 2012 through the end of June 2013, we will unpack and explore what it means to love God and love others through a year-long theme of studying  “The Jesus Creed.”   We will explore the biblical foundations of the creed, the scriptural characters and stories, the kingdom values, how to live and love as Jesus, and how we are privileged to participate in the life of Christ each day!

My hope is that even though we are diverse in many ways, we can be united in our identity through living out the Jesus Creed – to love God and others.  Jesus lived it and so can we!

This is from “Bob’s Blend” in SFC’s Family Update for September 2012

This month’s book: The River Why: A Novel, by David James Duncan (excerpt on back)

Where: Gear-Up Espresso: 430 McClaine Street                                     

When: August 25, 8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Set in western Oregon, The River Why is a profound, and often profoundly funny novel about a man whose passion for flyfishing leads him “on a reluctant quest for self-discovery and meaning.” A brief excerpt:

People often don’t know what they’re talking about, but when they talk about love, they really don’t know what they’re talking about. The one sure thing you can say about love is that there isn’t much you can say about it. Not that you shouldn’t try. You can make analogies; love is like lots of things. One thing it’s like is a trout stream: try to capture a trout stream with a dam and you get a lake; try to catch it in a bucket and you get a bucket of water; try to stick some under a microscope and you get a close-up look at some writhing amorphous microcooties. A trout stream is only a trout stream when it’s flowing between its own two banks, at its own pace, in its own sweet way.

 

Love is also like poison oak. You can’t explain poison oak itch to somebody who’s never had it. And you can’t explain love to somebody who’s never had poison oak…ha! Just kidding. What I started to say is that love really is like poison oak: it’s highly contagious. Scratch it, it gets worse. Touch other people with it, they catch it too. What love is not like is your average fish; if love was a fish it would be suicidal: it wants to get caught.

 

I don’t know where I caught it first. I suspect maybe I had it all my life but didn’t know it – maybe because of all that cool trout-water purling over it, lulling it, numbing it, hypnotizing me into not feeling it. I suspect maybe everybody is covered with it, but most everybody doesn’t know it for one reason or another. And I suspect that anybody who thinks they don’t have it and thinks they don’t want it had better be damned careful, because it can get you anytime, anyplace, anyhow, and you don’t even know you have it till you find yourself scratching, and the more you scratch the more it itches, and the more it itches the more you like it till you’re so infested with the stuff that you sit around writing crap like this when you could be out fishing! It’s scary, that love! It can make you dangerous to yourself. It can change you. It can make you do strange things. Take the thing it made me do to my draft card…

Upcoming Books

• September 15: Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne
• October 20: The Secret Life of Bees: A Novel, by Sue Monk Kidd
• November 17: The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
• December 17: Hannah Coulter: A Novel, by Wendell Berry

 

For those who could not join us at the park for worship, here is one of five spiritual exercises used this past Sunday to draw us close to God.

Introduction

The purpose of this activity is to integrate prayer, sensation and the environment. You will need to take a piece of fruit with you (preferably something locally grown and organic, if possible), unless you are able to walk somewhere that you can pick blackberries or similar as you go. You may find it helpful to take a small journal and a pen or pencil to record any thoughts, impressions or prayers that you may want to come back to later. Find a space where you can comfortably walk in a `natural’ space and without interruption.

Open your eyes

Find a space where few or no man-made objects (buildings, roads, etc) are in the centre of your vision. Look at the things of nature. What strikes you most about what you are seeing? Color? Light? Pattern? Movement? Something else? Take a moment to really concentrate on what you see in front of you. What is God saying to you through your eyes? What would you like to say to God about what you have seen?

Only listen

Find a space where traffic noise and other distractions are at a minimum. Try to make yourself as still and quiet as possible. Make sure that you are comfortable. Close your eyes, and just listen to the sounds of nature around you. What can you hear? What do the sounds remind you of? How do they make you feel? Is God speaking to you through the sounds of creation? Is there anything that you feel you would like to whisper to God?

Feeling your way

You may want to stay where you are, or move to a new spot. Reach out and touch something of creation around you (but use care – although a part of nature, thorns and stinging nettles probably won’t make for a pleasant experience. Please also take care to make sure that there is no broken glass, barbed wire or other dangerous object in your way). What is the object you’ve chosen? What is its texture? How does it feel? Rough? Smooth? Warm? Cool? Does it draw your thoughts to something else? Is God using this object to tell you something? Have you learned something that you’d like to share with God?

Breathe in

Again, find a space as far as possible from roads and traffic. Take time to relax and become comfortable. Breathe in deeply through your nose. Do this a few times. Are there any smells that you begin to notice? What types of scents are present? Plants? Animals? Earthy smells? Others? Where do these scents take your thoughts? The Bible sometimes speaks of things being pleasing odors to God. Is God filling you with peace and joy as you inhale the pleasing scents around you? What would you like to offer God here and now?

Taste and see

Take the fruit that you have brought with you on the prayer walk. Although cultivated, this is also a part of the natural world. Take a bite of the fruit. Can you describe its flavor? Is God nourishing you in this moment? What is the flavor of prayer?

Space to think

You have now experienced creation through all five senses, and hopefully each of your senses helped to lead you into prayer in some way. Think for a moment about how you felt at each point on the walk. Did you feel yourself part of nature, or somehow separate, outside of it? Why? Why did God equip us with such a variety of senses? Do you think that all five of our senses should play some part in our prayers and our worship? What do you think about God speaking to us through His creation? Do you think you now have a greater appreciation of the natural world than you did before you started the walk? Journal your thoughts.

For those who could not join us at the park for worship, here is one of five spiritual exercises used this past Sunday to draw us close to God.

Instructions.  After choosing a friend, take turns being a Sacred Companion for one another on your spiritual journey with God.  Allow at least 15 minutes for each of you to practice being a Sacred Companion by offering the gifts of spiritual hospitality and prayer.

Active Listening.  Invite your friend to share on his/her relationship with God by asking a specific question like, “When have you sensed God’s presence recently?”  (Other alternatives include: “How are things going in your relationship with God?”  What is on your heart that you want to share with the Lord today?”  “What is God speaking to your heart?”  “What has God been doing in your life?”  “How have you been experiencing God lately?”  “How is your prayer life going?”  “What are you and God working on together?”  “How has your life demonstrated your love for God recently?”)

If your friend is hurting or struggling then it’s important that initially you focus your listening on that, inviting him or her to share with you and the Lord by asking a question like “What do you need God’s help with today?” or simply, “How are you?”  After some empathic exchanges you can ask the other, more explicit questions that directly promote intimacy with the Lord.  Then as you listen help the Pilgrim to notice examples of God’s care and action in his or her life by asking inviting open questions, reflecting feelings, and summarizing spiritual experiences.

Brainstorm an Action Step.  After you have a shared understanding transition your friend into considering an action step by asking an illuminating/guiding question like, “What do you think God is leading you to do?”  (Alternatives: “What is God teaching you about improving your relationship with him?”  “What has God said to you from his Word that you want to work on?”  “What would you like to do to grow closer to God this week?”)

Persist with asking gentle, probing questions aimed at helping your friend think about what he or she needs to work on with God.

Close with Prayer.  Help your friend pick up the “Keys to the Kingdom” by offering to pray for his or her relationship with God along the lines of what has been shared.  If your friend’s prayer request is unclear then ask something like, “How can we pray for your relationship with God?”  (Alternatives: “How can I pray for your spiritual growth?”  “What would you like us to ask God to do in your life?”)

Pray in faith, calling upon God’s grace and power on behalf of your friend’s specific request(s).