renewal on Growth

Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...

Glorious One, you alone are our Rock and Redeemer. We trust you, your Holy Word, your Holy Wisdom, to put all things in right relationship. Make us wise. Let the words of our mouths be acceptable to ...

As fall temperatures drop, trees begin to lose their green (chlorophyll), and their fall foliage of vibrant red, yellow, and orange appears. Earlier in the year, maples have dropped seedpods (sometime...

According to Bill Tripp, a member of the Karuk tribe in Northern California and a forest manager, Fire is that which renews life. A lot of people have been conditioned to look at it as a threat and...

Discipleship is transformation, not information overload or behavioral modification. When transformation occurs, there is an increasing hunger for more knowledge of Jesus and His Word, but the primary...

We may not see tangible evidence of where we are going, what God is doing, or how we are growing, but wintering is essential preparation for life to flourish. Uncertainty, like winter, clears the land...

People in a hurry never have time for recovery. Their minds have little time to meditate and pray so that problems can be put in perspective. In short, people in our age are showing signs of physiolog...

Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled – perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into...

For the joy of your presence Changing and renewing us Day by day, We offer you our praise. For the blessing you bring us, The outpouring of your love Day by day, We offer you our praise. For p...

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart Could have recovered greenness?

Eternal and Generous God, Every good gift comes from You. Your generosity is expressed best Through Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, Who gave Himself for us. We acknowledge we often doubt Your will...

O gracious Father, who opens your hand and fills all living things with abundance: Bless the lands and waters, and multiply the harvests of the world; send your Spirit into the world, that it may rene...

There’s a quote by H. Richard Niebuhr that I believe is absolutely true.  “The great Christian revolutions,” he argued, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen w...

Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a two-stage process. It involves taking off the old and replacing it with the new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell or were ...

Leader: O Holy Love, food of our souls, living spring of the water of life, we worship you. All: Our souls thirst for your presence; and we hunger for your grace. O Christ, Bread of Life, sown...

jobs concluding, stages finishing, grieving over, grudges over, blaming over, excuses over. O God, grant me your sense of timing. In this season of ...

And so we arrive at autumn, the conclusion of our ordinary time in the land. The seeds planted at the start of our pilgrimage have produced a harvest in fields, homes, and towns. Farms display God’s a...

Almighty God, you bless us so richly. You renew us and give us new life. You equip us with the gifts of your Spirit. You give us an amazing calling to follow you each day. But we fail to use the gifts...

Thank you, Lord, for this season of sun and slow motion, of games and porch sitting, of picnics and light green fireflies on heavy purple evenings; and praise for slight breezes. It’s good, God...

Holy and Gracious God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We give you thanks for the gift of life, for the gift of Jesus our Savior, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and for the gift of this sacrament that ...

Pastor: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,  People: and we have seen his glory, Pastor: glory as of the only Son from the Father,  People: full of grace and truth.  ...

Gracious God, on Sundays we come to this place and you fill us up with your goodness and light and we are renewed. But when we go out into the world, we fall short in so many ways. We confess that we ...

The Christian life is not a life dripping with personal satisfaction or one of basking in feeling “positive.” It isn’t a life baptized in stimulation or excitement. It definitely isn’t a life of conse...

God of grace–generous Giver of all good gifts: You bless us abundantly every day—In Your Son our Savior who makes us new creations; in the smile of child, the greeting of a friend and the hug of a...

Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength... It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. that by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. Risen C...

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

As we call ourselves to worship, let us remember that our God is an awesome God, who in Jesus Christ has lived in our flesh, faced our temptations, gone to cross for, and lives today in heaven. In thi...

Jesus’s resurrection opened a door between the fallen, groaning world into which he was born and the renewal of all things. That door was a stone rolled back by the very finger of God from the mouth o...

Not every story has a happy ending, ... but the discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart, and the revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever beyond redemption. The pos...