What’s Going on at the Church
Interested in Getting Involved?
We have a lot of different ways for you to get involved – short-term projects, one-time opportunities, working with our livestream technology on Sundays, plus much more. Click on the button below to see what we have on our ‘volunteer wish list’. As more opportunities become available, we will be sure to update our listings.
“Weighing Truth and Life”
In the Church we talk a lot about spirituality, and these days it isn’t necessarily clear what we mean by that. These days there are myriad traditions and practices that fall under this heading, many of which are beneficial to our minds, bodies, and spirits. The following is an introductory foray into what is meant by Christian spirituality. It is an excerpt from a book entitled Surrender to Love by David G. Benner.
“Christian spirituality is a journey toward union with God. First and foremost, therefore, it is a relationship. But this is a relationship unlike any one has ever known. Union with God is not the intimacy of two separate people, but the intimacy of my self in God, with God’s self in me. The more we are led by the Spirit in following Christ, and the more we are drawn in Love toward the center of our being, the less clear the boundaries between God and what we experience as our “self” become.
Meister Eckhart describes this union in Love this way, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. Mine eye and God’s eye are one eye and one sight and one knowledge and one love.” Meeting God in the place within the depths of our soul in which God dwells, and in which we dwell in God, we are invited to sink into the eternity of the divine essence. Doing so, however, we never become the divine essence. Union is not fusion. In union with God, human personality is neither lost, nor converted into divine personality. It is however, transformed in ways that are sufficiently profound as to be worthy of being described as rebirth. This primarily takes the form of the transformation of our identity, will, and desire as we take on the heart and mind of Christ. Another word for this journey is surrender.
As Jesus pointed out, in order to find our life we must first lose it. (Matt. 16:24-25) Surrender is the indispensable gateway to life, genuine freedom, and the fulfillment of humanity. Still, union with God is not something we achieve. It is a gift of grace. We do however, have an important role to play in accessing this grace, with prayer, and spiritual practices, through which we offer our consent to grace.“
Peace, Pastor Ed