Prayer for the New Year

Here is a new year’s prayer that I wrote several years ago. I am sharing it again with you all and wishing you a year of faithfulness and joy. ~Joanna God of new life, God of life made new, We begin this new year as we ended the last– embraced by your spirit of love…

Call to Worship for Christmas 2c

Based on John 1:1-5 and Genesis 1:1-4 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And light. And lights. And it was good. And it is good. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. All things came to be through the Word. In the Word…

Liturgy for Lighting the Christ Candle

We give thanks for the light of hope—unrelenting and inexplicable. Our hope in Christ shines on. We give thanks for the light of peace—strong and unafraid. The peace of Christ lights our way. We give thanks for the light of joy—persistent and unpredictable. The joy of Christ brightens our lives. We give thanks for the…

Christmas Hymns–Revised

One of the downsides of a theological education (and/or an overactive theological imagination) is an inability to sing some favorite old hymns with naive gusto. During this Christmas season in particular, we simply know too much about the biblical story (and the reality of childbirth and babies in general) to fully believe all of the…

Thoughts on Gun Violence

The words below are taken from the sermon I preached last Sunday. There is more to say. There are better things to say. But these are the words I have right now. The Bible does not specifically address issue of gun control, but there is a lot in scripture that speaks to various aspects of…