belonging on Security

Prayer of Confession Jesus, we thirst We thirst for love and belonging We thirst for security and provision We thirst for truth and hope We thirst for healing for our wounds We thirst for mercy for o...

We were created to communicate, to speak truth fully to one another, so that we might be members of one another. To be members of one another means we must learn to trust one another. Trust, like trut...

Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are

Welcoming One, we welcome you and we welcome another school year. Thank you for the blessings of learning and growing, thinking and creating, reasoning and discovering. Fulfill these blessings in ever...

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

When we think about our health and safety, we tend to think first and foremost about our bodies. We may also consider our mental health. But have you ever considered how your relational health impacts...

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

[Belonging is] the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only ...

Preaching Commentary What is the meaning of life? Why is it that we exist? Or to put it in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “what is the meaning of life?” If you ask Google, which I did, vario...

At issue here is the question: ‘To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?’ Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, an...

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

Starbucks exploded by not just offering customers a cup of coffee but by giving them a comfortable, sophisticated environment in which to relax. Customers felt good about themselves when they walked i...

There can be more genuine fellowship among those who share the same disposition than among those who share the same beliefs, especially if that disposition is toward kindness and generosity

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on etymology of home in v...

Aloneness can lead to loneliness. God's preventative for loneliness is intimacy - meaningful, open, sharing relationships with one another. In Christ we have the capacity for the fulfilling sense ...

Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect.

All of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ. It is God who gives us the ability to stand firm. God has commissioned us. And God has identified us as his own By placing the Holy Spirit in o...

We are not our own: therefore, let us not set our own will as our rule, but submit ourselves wholly to God.

We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can ...

Your life is not your own: it belongs to God. To "be yourself" is to be and do what God wants you to be and do, knowing that God created you for a mission and knows you and your mission bett...

At issue here is the question: ‘To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?’ Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, an...

Break our hearts, Jesus That we may weep as You weep Love as You love Break our hearts Jesus and raise our voices that we may speak and act so all may be safe so all may have opportunity so all may k...

One of the oldest human needs is to have someone to wonder where you are if you don’t come home at night.

I bless you with the sure knowledge that you belong to the Alpha and the Omega You are children of the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. He has called you to be his nation, and his royal pr...

Has not the one God made you? We belong to God in body and in spirit And what does the one God seek? To be on our guard and to be faithful. The Lord will send his messenger, The Lord, whom w...

The apostle Paul said, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on thin...

When I engaged with twenty-somethings, for example, who were just entering the adult years, I found them preoccupied with clarifying their identity. What kind of a man or woman am I becoming, they w...

Isolated at Christmas It’s an isolating feeling to be on the outside looking in. We’ve all felt it. Some of us especially feel this way at Christmastime. We might relate to Frank Abagnale in the mov...

Preaching Commentary A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in t...