The Parish

When your desire to run is outmatched by your desire to stay, a beautiful kind of peace begins to appear. A peace that doesn't need outcomes to exist, it just needs the presence of God.

When Zechariah confronted a mystery that didn't fit into the tight and tidy quarters of his faith, he become overwhelmed with fear.  Mary's more flexible faith allowed her to sit with the mystery and to ponder it rather than run away from it.

We cannot begin Advent with angels and wise men and choirs. We cannot start where the tinsel and glitter is. We have to begin small, quiet, and unnoticed. We have to begin the way the story grew in Mary. The way it still grows in us.

Set prayers and liturgy can feel stiff and impersonal if they are not part of our tradition but they may hold unexpected riches.

A new life iwth an old mindset isn't freedom-it's a more comfortable prison.

Jesus stirs the troubled waters of our lives with a question that heals more deeply than any answer ever could.

 When we are stressed, being told "don't worry!" can feel at best insensitive. But what if we see it as an invitation rather than a critique?

It's strange how God meets us in the moments we often think are proof of His absence.

If what mattered to God mattered to us, we might just realize what matters.

The stories that we water, and the moments that we nurture are the ones that grow and shape the garden of our lives.

The world around us is eager to tell us what to value but Jesus has a different agenda for us.

What if the some of the conflict in our lives isn't about right or wrong, but simply about different ways of showing up in the same moment.

Leave your TV dinners in the living room, we have been invited into God's kitchen to learn how to make something beautiful together.

As we come to understand Jesus' ethic of love, adopting loving behaviours is important  - but it's not enough. We are called to genuine love.

The thoughts we choose to rehearse will shape the people we become.  And over time, those choices become the fabric of our attitudes, and the outfit of our lives.

When we repent, we need to radically change the way we think, not just our outward etiquette. The goal isn't to become like Emily Post, it's to become like Jesus!

Some ideas are so big that that they need to be demonstrated instead of talked about.

The fallout of reckless decisions we make early in life can leave us feeling that it's all over. But it isn't - because God loves a rematch.  

Some are more paralyzed by their beliefs than they are freed by them.

Freedom is not something we wait for, it is something we risk for.

Many of the central characters in Old Testament stories live complex lives. While we may not want to follow their example, if we look at them as a mirror we may recognize in them, aspects of our own life that need attention.

You don't forget a truth that sets you free, but you might forget the title.

Hope is more than wishful thinking because it is not focused on what we are wishing for – it is focused on Who we are hoping in.

Psalm 57 doesn't tells how things are, it tells us how things feel, and for that it has Cave Reviews.

Hannah and Peninnah - two wives in the same household but living with very different sorrows. How can they find a way forward?

As a young tree is bent so will it grow, but there can be more to an old story with a new name. 

How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? A poignant plea by exiles bound up with God in their story but immersed in a pagan culture by their circumstances.  

Before it speaks, the unforgettable fire waits, to see who notices.

Leah lived in a household marked by deceit, manipulation and competition. But she saw it through her gentle eyes and chose a different path.  

Apparently God doesn't cease to know our thoughts, but unfortunately we can cease to know Hers.

Healed people don't change the world, changed people do.

It is the details we dwell upon that make a story-the story we chose to tell.

We often think it's a miracle when we feel that God has heard us and responded, but what if for God a miracle is when we have heard his voice and responded.

What the Emmaus Road disciples thought they wanted was a conventional king on a throne of political power. What they got was broken bread on the Communion table.

Easter | A sense of wonder we feel in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world.

Good Friday with special guest Steve Kennedy.

Jesus isn't looking for palm-waving admirers willing to lay down a coat, he is looking for those who will lay down their privilege

The fragrance of love is even stronger than the stench of death.

Jesus doesn't offer a life that is happy and easy and safe. He calls us from our comfortable spectator places to take up our cross and follow him.

If we don't learn to have a healthy appreciation for how precious and sacred life before death is, how will we ever appreciate anything that comes after.

We follow Jesus not just so that we get to the right destination but so that, along the way, we can learn how we should walk.  

Jesus didn't endure the wilderness to spare us from it, but to show us how.

The peace message of Jesus is often misunderstood, yet central to his teaching.  That's why He will interrupt our concept of what peace really is and offer an alternative that leads to human flourishing for all involved.

If we find ourselves, in these fraught times, succumbing to a desire to hoard and take care of our own, we may find it helpful to recognize that what we have is not really our "own" but a gift from God, given so that we can share.

We choose to belong to each other—because it is together—not alone,  that we can witness what love can do and maybe catch a glimpse of just how big God is.  Community is our spiritual practice, not just a byproduct of it.

Jesus is bringing a subversive kingdom where those considered losers and outsiders are brought to the table and celebrated.  

The Christian mission was never to make the world more christian, but instead to make it more loving, and the way of Christ will show us how. Conviction Three: The rejection of world domination and Christendom and embracing influence not control

Jesus is what God has to say. If we treat the bible as a flat text where every verse carries equal weight then we either resolve those conflicts by making arbitrary decisions about what applies and what doesn't or we just stay confused. A Jesus-centered approach to scripture can help resolve the conflict.

Jesus is offering us a compelling way forward in a divided world.  Jesus is teaching us that instead of choosing a side we can choose a way.   Conviction one | We choose to follow Jesus not just worship him.

What if being the light of the world means taking a vital role in a silent movie?

What if God is not trying to heal the world for, us as much as heal the world through us.