We gather again this year for Lent, and to gather as the community of God gathered in mission, service, and worship together in Marion. This year, our worship will be online, and shared with our community in a prerecorded format. Videos will be posted to premiere at 6 pm on Tuesday evenings in Lent, as woudl be our time if we were…
Friends, The Session wanted to relay to you some of our discussions about worship as we head into the fall and Advent and Christmas. We have been worshiping via Zoom for 7 months now, and we have begun to have a small group of people back in the worship space. In the short term, we will continue holding a hybrid worship service.…
For the foreseeable future, our worship will be based online. We are using Zoom as our worship platform. You can download Zoom from https://zoom.us/download or from your mobile platform app store. For the connection information please contact the church office. If you’d like to follow along in worship later, then we have two options: You can find our online worship recordings on…
Gayla reminds us that we are the church, and it takes all of us, as we move forward into the church following COVID-19.
Nahum 2:1-13 Nahum is a prophet who only appears in his own book. He prophecies destruction against Nineveh and Assyria, in a marked contrast to the book of Jonah. We certainly hear the tone of Jonah the prophet in the words of Nahum. This book fits the context of Jonah, and Habakkuk. Here Nahum describes an attack on Nineveh, or perhaps how…
Friends, In our meeting last night, the Session reinforced our commitment to following the advice of science and medical advisors as we continue to deal with the realities of COVID-19 and the pandemic. At this time, the CDC’s guidance is that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks, and that those who are not vaccinated do need to…
I Kings 9:1-9 Covenant is a key part of the story of God and humanity. There are times when the covenant is unconditional – God will do this thing regardless of what we do; and times when the covenant is conditional – if the people are faithful then God will do this thing. This passage focuses on a conversation between God and…
Here’s a look at how the Blessing Box served our neighbors during the month of May 2021. It’s there for people to take what they need, and for people to stock with their generosity.
Psalm 2 The challenging verses at the end of the Psalm can only be read in context of the whole Psalm. The Psalm is a contrast between the rule of God and God’s chosen ruler, and the earthly rulers. God’s anger and mockery are explicitly named here, in a way that perhaps we don’t think of as normal. God demands a deference…
Acts 2:1-4; Galatians 4:1-7 [5:16-26] Paul writes that the works of the flesh are obvious. And while the duality of flesh versus spirit is a problem, let’s go explore the obviousness. For Paul doesn’t call the works of the Spirit obvious. Our behavior illustrates that it isn’t obvious, or that we don’t care. There is a strong contrast with the fruits…
Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29 The end of this passage is the familiar part. The start is a bit more aggressive, a bit more John the Baptist, a bit louder than the tone we normally read the familiar part in. Paul does a bit of work here, addressing the people of faith in Galatia and in Marion. This duality between faith and…
Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-21 Paul is here calling the other disciples on the carpet. It’s an odd passage to read a week after the Jerusalem conference, when we just heard about the church opening to Gentiles. It is important that we read the letter carefully, and in the context, remembering the conversation from Acts 15 last week. What Paul actually seems…
Acts 15:1-18 The Jerusalem conference is an important moment in the life of the Church. It is a defining moment. Do people have to join the church through Judaism, or is there another way? Is salvation through the circumcision of Moses alone or is there another way? Fundamentally, the church and its leaders have to make a decision here.…