When we say, “I believe in God . . .” we are saying “I give my heart to God.” We are expressing a desire to be in relationship with God. Which God? “The God who made heaven and earth.” The God who loves us so much he gave his only son to show us how to live and even die on the cross. It is the God who conquered death in the resurrection and gave us the Holy Spirit so that we will continue to know God’s love.
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Posted in Community, Featured, Ministry |
Tags: Baptism, Baptismal Covenant, Christian formation, confirmation, creed, Jesus, prayer 
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Sometimes in our attempt to develop and understand and practice our faith, we fall into a worldly paradigm of barter. What will it cost me to be saved, to know redemption?
| Posted in Community, Featured, Ministry, Spirituality |
Tags: Christian formation, evangelism, Jesus, mission, stewardship Comments Off
By virtue of our baptism, we are given words of invitation to share in Christ’s eternal priesthood. It is this crucified and resurrected Christ who stands as the high priest at the Center and we, the Community of the Baptized, are encircled around this empowering presence who invites us into a royal priesthood as joint heirs.
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Giving is modeled by Jesus, all the great saints, and all of my mentors. I know about giving and about self-sacrifice. I’ve walked the fine line of being “given out” before because of the amount of giving that seemed required in my life at differing times.
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Tags: adults, children's ministry, Jesus, love, relationships, spirituality Comments Off
“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” It’s easy to gloss over the fact that the verbs go from past tense, to present tense, to future tense.
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Tags: Easter, Holy Eucharist, Jesus, ministry, spirituality Comments Off
On this Sunday church bells peal, choirs sing, flowers adorn altars and all rejoice in the resurrection. How have others explained this event of a missing body, empty tomb, darkness to light, death to life?
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What does “resurrection” mean? The creeds speak of a “resurrection of the body.” Many Christians repeat the Nicene Creed every week without noticing what it says, and assume that the gospel has to do with the immortality of the soul. That, however, is a Greek idea and not what the apostles proclaimed.
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Tags: adults, Christianity, Easter, Jesus, resources, resurrection Comments Off
We have entered the most holiest of weeks for Christians and will soon be enveloped in the Triduum – three days of prayer in preparation of the greatest feast of the church year.
| Posted in Community, Featured, Spirituality |
Tags: children's ministry, Christian formation, Good Friday, Holy Week, Jesus, Maundy Thursday, meditation Comments Off
John’s portrait of Jesus emphasizes the divinity of Jesus. Jesus has been sent from heaven to earth to bring salvation—a new friendship with God through which we become God’s daughters and sons.
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The youth I have in our confirmation program don’t use the name Jesus very much. God? Sure, seems safe. Holy Spirit. Maybe, but what is it anyway? But Jesus? Jesus was a person. A person means a relationship – conversation, working together, being together. A little more intimidating.
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Tags: Christian formation, Christianity, Jesus, youth ministry Comments Off
For over hundreds of years, people have talked about how certain animals are like Jesus, gentle and strong, dying and rising. For children, these can be symbols to help understand difficult concepts and why we often refer to certain sayings and stories in the bible and connect them to the resurrection.
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Tags: children's ministry, Easter, family ministry, Jesus, resurrection Comments Off
Lent is the time in the church calendar when we remember how Jesus was “led by the spirit” into the desert to face the devil’s temptation and to experience personally the power of the living God. It is a time to consider our own “desert experiences,” when we take risks and commit our plans to God.
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Tags: desert, discernment, Jesus, Lent, meditation, spirituality Comments Off
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