![]() ![]() Brave love faces all our wild contradictions, the many ways of being human and brings love to bear on all of them. It’s loving the climate deniers and anti-vaxers and creationists. It’s loving the world with all the racism, sexism, ableism, ageism and speciesism. The whole world and all its hate and violence and xenophobia and homophobia. And this love isn’t limited to the people in the room or in the building our faith asks us to open ourselves to loving the whole world. And that’s a call of love to other congregants and to people in the room who aren’t living up to expectations or who behave in ways we think might be inappropriate and it’s a call to love for the stranger, the newcomer, the person with mental illness who acts in ways that feel foreign it’s a call to love for the crying child and ornery teen and for all the people who just plain bug you. Ordained ministry for sure, but I think we’re all called to minister to and with each other. But my sense of the world as a gift, my sense of a grace operative in this world despite its terrors, propels me to allow the world to open my heart still wider, even if the openness comes by breaking-for I have seen the whole world fall into a few hearts, and nothing has ever struck me as more beautiful.”iīrave love is critical to the call to ministry. It gives me pause to realize that, were such a prayer said by me and answered by God, I would afterward possess a heart so open that even hate-driven zealots would fall inside.” He goes on: “There is a self-righteous knot in me that finds zealotry so repugnant it wants to sit on the sidelines with the like-minded, plaster our cars with bumper stickers that say "Mean People Suck" and "No Billionaire Left Behind" and "Who would Jesus Bomb?", and leave it at that. He wrote: ".Not just fellow nuns, Catholics, Calcuttans, Indians. ![]() Mother Teresa once said “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” The American novelist David James Duncan wrote about this quote in an essay. The cross can be seen in graveyards and hanging on people’s necks and on highways and byways across the country and around the world. If you’re Christian, and even if you’re not, it’s everywhere. It’s a symbol of the power and the abiding love of God. The cross is a sign of hope and of glorious things to come. Let’s stick with the positive.) Either way, it a sign of triumph our greatest fear has been defeated. Universalists believe everyone will rise again, everyone is saved. With an unshakable hope in Jesus, we are a church that believes we. (Well, that depends on your denomination. To be valorous means to be courageous, brave, bold, audacious, valiant, and victorious. We Exist to Share The Word and Welcome Our World Brand New Church is a friendly, casual environment where you will be welcomed by people who are excited. Jesus conquered death and in doing that, we will rise again in body and in spirit. He suffered and died on the cross, but that cross became the gateway to everlasting life. Jesus suffered, died and was buried, but on the third day he rose. The cross, in the Christian tradition, is a sign of victory. Inside, outside, there are crosses over the alter and in the vestibule and the minister’s office and sometimes they stand many stories high on top of the building. ![]() Adorning every Protestant church is a cross. ![]()
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