The Parish

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. 

The message the shepherds were given about a baby in a cattle feed trough was vague and cryptic at best. They may have wished for a more detailed map but in faith they followed the sign they had been given and it brought them to Jesus.

Advent will teach us that we need search for the light of the world in these stories, so we know what it looks like in our own lives.

During the secular holiday season, it can feel as though we're expected to be happy all the time - have a holly, jolly merry Christmas!  But the message the angel brought to the shepherds on that first Christmas didn't offer happiness - it offered joy, which is a very different thing.