Author: admin_tgc

Scripture: Psalm 1

Dear Church,

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked 
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord 
and who mediates on his law day and night

These are the very first words of the Book of Psalms–the prayer book you’ll find in the very center of scripture.  For generations, these prayers–spoken and sung–have been a sort of holy umbilical cord growing God-life in God’s people.  We’re using these words as our jumping off point for our second session of Spirit School ‘How to Cultivate Intimacy with the Holy Spirit’.  Many of us met the Lord in the context of a religion mostly concerned with protecting us from bad things.  But God’s gift of the Spirit is an invitation to so much more–a life centered on and overflowing with the goodness of God.  When we learn to delight in God’s ways we become, in the next words of the psalm– like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.   We were made for so much more than not doing wrong.  Life with God, filled with the Holy Spirit, is the relationship that leads into that more that Jesus called abundant life.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
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Scripture: Acts 2:1-21

Dear Church–

At the last meal he shared with his disciples before his death, Jesus told them, ‘it is good that I am leaving you.’  Even though no one was brave or foolish enough to say it, I’m sure they were all thinking that was crazy.  How could it be good that Jesus was leaving?  The disciples had incredible intimacy with the Lord, how could it be good for them to lose that?  What could be better than walking around,  sharing meals, talking one-on-one with Jesus?  

Jesus tells them it’s good that he’s leaving them because when he returns to the Father, he will send them the Holy Spirit.  He leaves them physically, so that he can be even more intimate with them spiritually.  And that gift is not just with the people who were in the room that night, but for all who call upon the name of the Lord.  Even us.

So often, we long to have a deeper connection with Jesus–we pray for a word, for a sign, for a feeling.  Friends, we can have all that and more: we can have continual access to the Spirit of God through Christ.  This Sunday, we’ll share the story of the day Jesus kept his promise and poured out his Spirit upon his people.  It’s the day of Pentecost, it’s the birthday of the church, and it’s wildly wonderful good news for all of us.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20, 2 Timothy:6-7

Dear Church,

When Sandy Hook happened 9 years ago, I cried for days.  This week, I haven’t shed a single tear.  I am stunned and horrified and afraid but mostly I am numb.

This is the last Sunday of our season celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.  That means next we celebrate Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which means this Sunday, traditionally, churches celebrate Ascension–the day Jesus returned to the Father to reign in the Kingdom of Heaven.  That sounds triumphant and holy, but it feels like Jesus is leaving us behind.

Especially this week.

This week, reading the story of the ascension actually makes things make sense.  It seems like it’s saying that Jesus has left us to go be with God in God’s kingdom up there somewhere in heaven, and we are on our own down here with a great commission to take charge and build a satellite campus.  And the reason everything is so brutal and terrible is that we are cosmically bad at our assignment.

But things are not what they seem: in scripture, in the ascension, in the great commission–and in this present moment. Tragedy and loss are brutal and cannot be glossed over, AND violence and injustice are not running the show.  Jesus has not left us; the great commission is not a colonial curse and we are not relegated to despair. The good news is always better than it seems.

I hope you will worship with me, as we seek God, and stand on God’s promises in resistant response to this week’s fresh brutality.  We walk by faith, not by sight and we are called to be salt and light for just such a time as this.

Peace, 

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Acts 1:12-26

Dear Church,

What does it look like to love the risen Lord?  Sometimes–much more often than we’d like–it looks like waiting.

In the book of Acts, Luke tells us that Jesus spent 40 days with his followers after his resurrection.  It was a season full of meals and ministry and teaching about the Kingdom of God.  And that season culminated in the ascension–Jesus and his disciples climbed the Mount of Olives and returned to the Father, and Jesus’ last words to them were–return to Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Full of hope, fear and confusion, full of love and full of grief–at first, the disciples did just that.  They returned to the upper room and they waited…for a while.  And when waiting grew too uncomfortable, they quit and did what seemed best in their own eyes.  How often do we do the same? 

As we struggle to grieve and make sense of last week’s horrific terrorist attacks–this is a particularly hard and holy word.  

Beloved ones–sometimes God asks us to wait.  Love for God compels us to act, but also–sometimes–to refrain from acting until we are equipped to move with Jesus and not ahead of him.   The disciples were so eager for the Kingdom of God to come, they couldn’t stand to wait.  Often the most difficult thing God requires of us is nothing–not to rush ahead, not to fill the space, not to make a plan–not to start before we are ready.  Those who love the Holy One must learn how to wait. 

In three Sundays, we will celebrate Pentecost–the day God kept the promise and gave the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples.  It’s coming–but it’s not here yet.  Like the first disciples, we too are in the season between Easter and Pentecost.  We too must learn to listen and wait on the Lord.  

​It’s so much harder than it seems.  The first disciples couldn’t do it.  This Sunday we’re gathering around the story of what they did instead of waiting.  For me, looking into this passage has been like looking into a mirror.  I hope you’ll listen, to learn why and how to wait, and the good news of what God does when we just can’t manage it.

Peace,
Pastor Kate

p.s. Friends–we will be lifting up the names of those lost in last weekend’s mass shootings and addressing this tragedy in the message.  I wanted to let you know so you could make wise decisions about stewarding your mental health. 

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Scripture: Acts 9:18-31

Dear Church,

Last week in our ‘Make Love the Measure’ worship series we shared the story of Ananias, the foolishly faithful believer who trusted the Lord’s call and healed & welcomed a man named Saul.   That seems like a pretty ‘normal’ biblical story until you learn Saul was blinded by the Lord on his way to Damascus (Annanias’ hometown) on a mission to find and arrest all the believers living there.  Saul’s plan was interrupted by God, who came, not to punish Saul, but to transform him into the ‘chosen vessel’ to bring the gospel to Gentiles.

Usually when we tell this story, we skip from the story of Saul’s encounter with Christ to the stories of Paul’s incredible ministry planting churches across the known world.  But this Sunday, we are looking deep into what we normally overlook.  Because it wasn’t just the power of the Lord that changed Paul’s heart–it was the love of a community.

In Acts chapter 9, we catch a glimpse of the way two churches loved, healed, taught, and learned from a man who, in his former life had been responsible for the brutal deaths of their loved ones.  That’s the kind of wondrous love the Spirit empowers and requires of us in the body of Christ.  It’s the kind of love that still redeems and remakes the world–and it is our baptismal birthright.

I hope you’ll join us as we ponder how to be a church full of life-changing, destiny shifting love. 

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:

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Scripture: Acts 9:10-19

Dear Church

Ananias was a brave and faithful man who risked all he had, including his life, to follow Jesus.  One day the Lord called to him in a vision and told him to go and heal a man named Saul who had come to town to arrest and execute Christians.God told Ananias that this man, who was responsible for the deaths of many believers in Jerusalem, who had come to Ananais’ town to arrest and kill even more, this man–not any of the people he persecuted–was God’s ‘chosen instrument’ to carry the gospel to the nations.

The Lord did not promise Ananias he would protect him and keep him safe.

Ananias didn’t ask him to.

The vision Ananias received from the Lord was dangerous and confusing. Honestly–it was offensive. And we who see Jesus’ acceptance of death on a cross as the holiest expression of God’s love for humanity–we must expect to be shocked by the limitlessness of God’s love for all of creation. If your visions from the Lord never challenge you, if they only affirm and encourage–they may not be from Jesus. And if you have no interest in visions at all–your following is limited by your own capacity for love, not expanded by his.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:

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Scripture: John 21:1-25

Why Peter?

This Sunday we read the story of Jesus’ breakfast on the beach with Peter.  Scholars call it the rehabilitation of Peter.  Here we see Jesus re-claiming and re-commissioning Peter as the leader of the church. 

If you take the gospels seriously you ask questions, and sooner or later one of those questions has to be–why Peter?  Why does Jesus choose this arrogant, overconfident, impulsive, brash, cowardly, also-he-has-some-good qualities fisherman in the first place?  Surely there were more gifted, more worthy, more promising people (ahem–women!) around.  Why Peter? Especially after he doesn’t pray in Gethsemane, dices off a guy’s ear, denies  Jesus after his arrest, deserts him during the crucifixion and doesn’t believe at the empty tomb.  Peter doesn’t get it.  There isn’t a mistake Peter doesn’t make.  There isn’t a chance he doesn’t blow.  So, why Peter?   What exactly are Peter’s qualifications? What does he do right that’s so amazing it balances out all of the wrong?

Well, I’ll give you a hint.  We call Jesus’ Kingdom the Upside-down Kingdom, because everything here is exactly the opposite of what we expect.  Peter’s qualifications are his failures. They are the measure of God’s love, and yours are too.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Psalm 145, Luke 24:13-35 (NIV)

This is my favorite Sunday of the year, because the Sunday after Easter is the day ‘Alleluia, He is Risen!’ stops being a worship response and starts determining how we LIVE.

Because we believe that Jesus is risen, we make different choices–we live differently, work differently, form community differently.  Because Jesus is risen, we fight different battles in different ways, we celebrate different victories, and we find ourselves in a different family.  Because Jesus is risen–we think differently, see differently, love differently. For us, everything changes.  Because Jesus is risen–everything is new.  And while the scope of the change is cosmic, the way we change is deceptively simple.

Love becomes the way we measure everything.  And when love is the measure–everything is made new.

I hope you’ll join me as we look at a beautiful story in a new and transformative way.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10

Dear Church,

On Good Friday, we gathered at 7 to watch and pray.  On Holy Saturday, as we waited, we walked the stations of the cross in our Labyrinth.

But friends–we know the end of the story.  We did not watch or wait as those without hope.  Sunday is coming–resurrection is coming.  I hope you’ll join us and add your hallelujah to the celebration.  We’ll be flowering the cross, so bring a bloom. (Don’t worry if you forget, we’ll have lots of extras!)

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 21:1-17

As he left Jericho and began his very last journey to Jerusalem, Jesus passed two blind men on the side of the road.  Hearing he was coming, the men cried out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’  The crowd tried to shut them up and push them aside, but Jesus heard their voices and he stopped.  He asked them, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’

‘Lord, we want our sight.’  They called his name; they knew who he was–but they couldn’t see him.

And so–Jesus gave it to them and immediately they could see and began to follow him.  

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus opened their eyes so they could see.  And once they could see, they began to follow.

And now we are entering into Holy Week.  Like those men on the side of the road–we also know who Jesus is, but there is still so much we can’t see.  We too need our eyes opened.  

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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