Scripture: "Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? ...Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove."
James 2: 14-15, 18 (The Message)
Music: "Awakening" Chris Tomlin
Message: A Call to Awakening
With every sunrise, we have the chance to awaken anew.
In the quiet of the early morning, we can set an intention to mindfully contemplate, if only for a few moments, what our relationship with
God asks of us. Our spirits can rise if faith is alive. In the quiet we can create a unique and personal worship experience.
Think of the untapped energy that can be released, that can open our minds and awaken us to possibilities that can breathe new life into our church. In living our faith through our hope, our thinking, and our actions.
It is too easy to drift along, to allow ourselves to be "asleep in the safety of rigid tradition". (From "The Chosen" Netflix series, spoken by Nicodemus, a Pharisee who possessed wisdom and curiosity, along with a hunger for truth and the courage to pursue it as he sought out Jesus to both question and understand his teachings.)
In gratitude for the many hearts, minds, and hands helping on this journey.
May we continue to awaken to the Holy Spirit moving through us.
"God still leads us to places where hope, faith, forgiveness and justice have been abandoned."
excerpted from UCC.org
"Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul."
Walt Whitman
Pics: Penny Hurley
